The first day sales for this year’s Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), that runs from Friday 5 to Monday 29 August 2016, are set to top £490,000, a record first day’s income for public sales.
This year’s Festival is welcoming 2,442 artists from 36 nations to perform in Scotland’s capital city that include the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Russian National Orchestra, with soloists including Daniil Trifonov, Maxim Vengerov and Mikhail Pletnev. Outstanding choral concerts such as Rossini’s Stabat Mater in the Opening Concert, Elgar’s The Apostles, Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, and Schoenberg’s rarely performed Gurrelieder feature high on the lists for those early bird bookers,
John Tiffany’s Broadway production of Glass Menagerie, a new version of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutti direct from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and two different cabarets with Barry Humphries’ Weimer Cabaret and Scottish artist Alan Cumming’s three-week residency Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs are also proving to be hot tickets. Vying for popularity, are world-renowned contemporary artists such as Icelandic superstars Sigur Rós, lead singer of Antony and the Johnsons, ANOHNI and Scottish band Mogwai, as well as ballerina Natalia Osipova with a brand-new triple bill of contemporary works.
Bringing the Festival season to a close on Monday 29 August, the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert, one of the world’s largest fireworks concerts, will launch over 400,000 fireworks into the sky above Edinburgh Castle This year it will be choreographed to live music from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which takes inspiration from William Shakespeare and features Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.
Young musicians in Edinburgh and the Lothians have a great opportunity to experience live music and see the world’s greatest artists for free as part of the Young Musician’s Passport scheme. Young people aged 18 or under on 16 April 2016 who play a musical instrument, are part of a choral group or receive music tuition, can join the scheme where they can get one free ticket and up to two half-price tickets for over 35 concerts during this year’s International Festival at the Usher and Queen’s halls.
Tickets can be bought online now at eif.co.uk, by calling 0131 473 2000 and in person at Hub Tickets, Castlehill, Edinburgh EH1 2NE and prices start at £8. EIF continues to offer deals for young ticket buyers with under 18s and Young Scot cardholders entitled to a discount of 50% off on selected tickets from the opening of sales today. A 30% discount is available to students, senior citizens, unemployed people, BECTU, Equity and MU cardholders on tickets for selected performances from Wednesday 6 July.