Edinburgh International Festival

A look at the New World themed theatre productions showing at the 2010 Edinburgh International Festival.

The Edinburgh International Festival strikes the tone of this year's cultural feast with a quotation from Columbus: "Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World." The New World theme is reflected in the range of innovative dance companies from overseas, such as MAU, who come from as far afield as New Zealand.

One of the less visible activities of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) is its its year-round programme of education and outreach. Around 1,000 young people are participating in workshops and projects this year, that explore the cultural diversity of performers and the ideas raised in the Edinburgh's flagship arts festival.

The 2010 Edinburgh International Festival Fireworks Concert will this year celebrate "Music from the Movies", it was announced by Festival Director Jonathan Mills this morning at the launch of the EIF programme taking place in August and early September.

After the setbacks and the multi-million pound cost over-runs, the new wing at the Usher Hall is ready to be unveiled to the world. From tomorrow people will be able to explore the much-awaited new addition to the grade A-listed building, which completes the £25 million, second phase of refurbishment of the Lothian Road concert hall.

The flagship Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), a high-brow assembly of some of the world's best opera, theatre, and ballet companies, was launched in 1947 as a stage for peace and unity in Europe after the Second World War. It was out of the Festival that the now massive Edinburgh Fringe sprung and grew in subsequent years.

The last witch burning in Scotland in the early 18th century, enacted at this year's Edinburgh International Festival, has an uncomfortable resonance 300 years later with an all-too-familiar tale of superstition, torture and brutality.

An estimated 220,000 people across the Scottish capital enjoyed the explosive finale to this year's Edinburgh International Festival and the summer festival season last night, the BoS Festival Fireworks Concert.

Tram works on Princes Street meant that many couldn't get as close as they wanted to the centrepoint of the show, Edinburgh Castle, but new vantage points were introduced and local radio stations Forth One and Forth 2 broadcast the concert live on the night, as in previous years.

Celebrating its 40th birthday (and a new £11 million Glasgow home), it is timely indeed for Scottish Ballet to be invited back to the EIF with a triple bill spanning 60 years of classical ballet and contemporary dance.

"All children, except one, grow up. Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!"  Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end."

"Peter Pan: (or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up)," J M Barrie's most famous play was rewritten in 1911 as a novel, "Peter and Wendy". Rather than being just an adventure story for children, it can be read as a self help guide for adults

Ivo Pogorelich excites debate and controversy today as much as he did in 1980 at the Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition when Martha Argerich left the jury in protest when the young Croatian pianist was eliminated in the 3rd round. She described him then as a genius. Purists may disagree.

Walking down to my seat in the front stalls, I quickly see that the Playhouse is packed up to the Gods.

Afterplay, written by Brian Friel, is most unusual in that he has taken characters from two familiar Chekhov plays and created a scenario in which these two strangers strike up a conversation in a Russian café.

Three of the "most innovative theatre makers" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year were announced as winners of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009 today. The three are The River People, David Leddy (pictured), and Inspector Sands.

Brian Friel's play, The Yalta Game, is based on a short story by Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Lapdog, that tells of a holiday affair between an older married man and a young married woman while they are both on holiday alone.

The final allocation of tickets for the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert go on sale on Sunday 30 August at 10.00am, only from the counter of Hub Tickets at The Hub Edinburgh.

Haydn's Symphony No 70 in D was written to celebrate the start of the construction of a new opera house on the Eszterhaza estate following a fire. It is about optimism and confidence in the future and Garry Walker conducted the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in a way that made us feel good.

Every morning throughout the Edinburgh International Festival there is a chamber concert at the Queen's Hall.

Under the big blue bosses of the Hub's, fine yellow blue and red ceiling (sadly hidden to accommodate theatre lighting) the audience gathered for a terpsichorean evening with Scotland's early music group, Concerto Caledonia. Their aim was to "present...tunes from the world of Scottish dance music before the fiddle took over."

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment make you listen again to Haydn.

Under Sir Roger Norrington they put an energy and pace into an all-Haydn evening at the Usher Hall on Saturday (22 August) that shook any dust off the audience's conception of the 18th century composer.