Edinburgh Festival HQ, The Hub to Join Olympic Celebration

Edinburgh International Festival HQ, The Hub will join Friday's Olympic celebration. Festival Director, Jonathan Mills, celebrates bells and the Olympics, which both resonate through Edinburgh International Festival 2012, by joining with people across the UK to bring to life Martin Creed's All The Bells.

At 08:12 on Friday 27 July, Jonathan Mills will ring what is possibly the highest bell in Scotland in the spire of Festival HQ , The Hub, in Edinburgh.

Last rung in the 1950s The Hub's bell was cast in 1849 by Thomas Mears, of Whitechapel Foundry, whose other bells include Big Ben, the Liberty Bell and Westminster Abbey. It was installed in James Gillespie Graham and Augustus Welby Pugin's building, originally called Victoria Hall, which opened as the Assembly building of the Church of Scotland.

A far cry from the 1800s, in 2012 The Hub will host artists from around the world, thinkers, talks and conversations, Festival ticket buyers and those looking for fine food on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. New for 2012 will be the Heineken Terrace at The Hub, a new covered outdoor bar in which to enjoy the Scottish summer.

Both the Olympic Games and bells resonate across the Festival's programme this year as it contributes seven major projects to the London 2012 Festival and brings Edinburgh audiences a rich programme of Russian music inspired by bells, and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

NVA's Speed of Light, three vast theatre works at the Royal Highland Centre Lowland Hall – 2008: Macbeth, Meine faire Dame – ein Sprachlabor, and Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir (Aurores), Gulliver's Travels from the director of 2009's epic Faust, a wonderful and whimsical Midsummer Night's Dream and Camille O'Sullivan's International Festival debut in The Rape of Lucrece form the Edinburgh International Festival's contribution to the London 2012 Festival and span the two week period between the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Vladimir Jurowski and the acclaimed Edinburgh Festival Chorus join together in a celebration of bells by Russian composers, elevating them beyond the everyday background soundscape to weave them through of some of the most rich and wonderful music written.

Rachmaninov's The Bells, based on verse by Edgar Allan Poe, is a grand choral symphony set to showcase the excellent amateur chorus of the Edinburgh International Festival, drawn together from all walks of life to perform with international conductors and orchestras over the Festival's three weeks. Other works include Rodion Shchedrin's Concerto for Orchestra No 2 'The Chimes', Myaskovsky's Silentium, and Denisov's Bells in the Fog, all being given their UK premieres.

Edinburgh International Festival 2012 opens in just two weeks time and runs until Sunday 2 September when it closes with the popular favourite, the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert performed live by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Princes Street Gardens.

Tickets still available at www.eif.co.uk

Edinburgh International Festival 2012 runs from 9 August – 2 September.

Celebrating our 65th anniversary the Edinburgh International Festival continues to present the best in contemporary and classic work from world leading artists and remains one of the most diverse, exciting and accessible events of its kind, with ticket prices beginning at just £6. Almost 3000 artists from 47 nations gather this year to share the live experience of theatre, dance, opera and music with audiences from approximately a third of the world's nations. 

 

 

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