Edinburgh International Festival
announces its programme for 2021,
Damon Albarn ©
Involved
Anna Meredith / Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Ségal / Black Country, New Road / black midi / Breabach / Caribou / Dàimh / Damon Albarn / Duncan Chisholm / Erland Cooper / Fara / Fatoumata Diawara / Floating Points / Jenna Reid & Harris Playfair / Karine Polwart / Kathryn Joseph / Kinnaris Quintet / Kokoroko / Laura Mvula / Moses Boyd / Nadine Shah / Neu! Reekie! / Richard Dawson / RURA / Siobhan Miller / Sona Jobarteh / The Comet is Coming / The Snuts / The Staves / The Unthanks / Talisk / Tune-Yards
any excuse to play 'Out Of Time', one of the most perfect pop songs ever written - best pp
The world’s leading performing arts festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, announces its programme for 2021, marking a global celebration of music, theatre and dance. Taking place from 7 to 29 August, this return to live performance marks a significant turning point for Scotland's cultural sector by providing a platform for artists to return to the stage after over a year. The 2021 International Festival pioneers the return of live performance to Scotland, with outdoor venues and digital programming safely welcoming back artists and audiences. Uniting people through artistic connections for over 70 years, the International Festival promises to continue this tradition in 2021, with a music programme that spans cosmic jazz and art-pop to subversive folk and Celtic traditional sounds.
Anna Meredith © Gem Harris
The contemporary music programme takes place in a temporary custom-built outdoor venue in Edinburgh Park, while the University of Edinburgh’s Old College Quad plays host to the trad music offering. Audiences can expect an excellent showcase of Scottish talent as well as diverse international representation across the line-up.
SAY Award winner Anna Meredith returns to Edinburgh after Five Telegrams, the outstanding 2018 International Festival opening event, to perform music from her second album FIBS. Fellow SAY Award-winning artist Kathryn Joseph also joins the bill, with haunting and beautiful balladry from her debut Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I've Spilled and the acclaimed follow-up From When I Wake the Want Is.
Kathryn Joseph ©
Composer, electronic musician and producer Sam Shepherd (aka Floating Points) crafts a euphoric live show, immersing the dancefloor in immediate, spontaneous energy. Accompanied by a band and string section, Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn presents tracks from across his songbook, including the current project The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, originally inspired by the landscapes of Iceland and expanded and completed during lockdown, exploring themes of fragility, emergence and rebirth.
English indie folk sister trio The Staves come to the city with songs from their new album Good Woman, and Northumbrian folk musician Richard Dawson plays a solo show, featuring music from his 2017 medieval concept album Peasant and sixth solo release 2020. Also hailing from the North East of England, The Unthanks present their eclectic yet luscious approach to folk, while Mercury-nominated singer Nadine Shah brings her Kitchen Sink album to Scotland for the first time, confronting society’s deeply ingrained misogyny and exploring her own story as a woman in her 30s.
FraserTaylor_NadineShah-
The programme also includes West Lothian indie heroes The Snuts, whose debut album became the first by a Scottish band to top the Official Album chart in 14 years. Genre-melting, guitar-noise four-piece black midi make an appearance, as well as fellow Londoners Black Country, New Road, who offer a fiercely energetic sonic time capsule merging the past, the present and the future.
Soulful singer Laura Mvula pays homage to the sounds of 80s new wave and dance-pop, as heard in her upcoming new album Pink Noise, and Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner, AKA California-based art-pop duo Tune-Yards, introduce their recently released fifth studio album sketchy. Other international guests include Canadian electronic artist Dan Snaith, AKA Caribou, with his latest “most surprising and unpredictable” LP Suddenly.
Malian actress, musician and social activist Fatoumata Diawara, widely regarded as the voice of young African womanhood, performs her first International Festival show tackling subjects such as the pain of emigration, the struggles of African women and life under the rule of religious fundamentalists. The International Festival also welcomes a performance by friends and collaborators Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Ségal: the Malian master of the kora and the French cellist with a background in trip-hop. Another virtuoso kora player, Sona Jobarteh, from the West African Griot dynasties, joins the bill with her powerful mix of music and political activism.
Fatoumata Diawara c-AIDA_MULUNEH-
Audiences can enjoy the best of Scottish trad music at the 2021 International Festival, with shows from Inverness-born fiddle player and composer Duncan Chisholm, Glasgow instrumental folk band RURA, Gaelic supergroup Dàimh and all-female Scottish-English collective the Kinnaris Quintet. Off the back of their virtual tour in support of music venues affected by the pandemic, Glasgow band Breabach bring their double bagpipes, Gaelic vocals and step dancing to Edinburgh, while popular instrumental trad trio Talisk promise one of their characteristically high energy productions.
Folk quartet Fara play fiddle-led trad-based music, with inspiration taken from the landscape, community and culture of their native Orkney. Also on the fiddle, Jenna Reid, one of Shetland’s finest and most accomplished modern-day fiddlers, performs with pianist Harris Playfair and left-field ensemble and recent collaborators Mr McFall’s Chamber. Karine Polwart returns to the International Festival after her triumphant Scottish Songbook performance in 2018, and Scottish folk singer and songwriter Siobhan Miller plays traditional songs as part of a quartet.
Following the release of his new compilation collection Holm, multi-disciplinary artist and composer Erland Cooper arrives with music from his lauded Orkney trilogy: Solan Goose, Sule Skerry and Hether Blether. Meanwhile, Glasgow-based four-piece Tide Lines perform their trademark anthemic folk rock, rooted firmly in the Highlands, and Edinburgh’s award-winning literary collective and arts production house Neu! Reekie! programme one of their signature cross-culture experiences.
Audiences can enjoy the best of Scottish trad music at the 2021 International Festival, with shows from Inverness-born fiddle player and composer Duncan Chisholm, Glasgow instrumental folk band RURA, Gaelic supergroup Dàimh and all-female Scottish-English collective the Kinnaris Quintet. Off the back of their virtual tour in support of music venues affected by the pandemic, Glasgow band Breabach bring their double bagpipes, Gaelic vocals and step dancing to Edinburgh, while popular instrumental trad trio Talisk promise one of their characteristically high energy productions.
Folk quartet Fara play fiddle-led trad-based music, with inspiration taken from the landscape, community and culture of their native Orkney. Also on the fiddle, Jenna Reid, one of Shetland’s finest and most accomplished modern-day fiddlers, performs with pianist Harris Playfair and left-field ensemble and recent collaborators Mr McFall’s Chamber. Karine Polwart returns to the International Festival after her triumphant Scottish Songbook performance in 2018, and Scottish folk singer and songwriter Siobhan Miller plays traditional songs as part of a quartet.
Following the release of his new compilation collection Holm, multi-disciplinary artist and composer Erland Cooper arrives with music from his lauded Orkney trilogy: Solan Goose, Sule Skerry and Hether Blether. Meanwhile, Glasgow-based four-piece Tide Lines perform their trademark anthemic folk rock, rooted firmly in the Highlands, and Edinburgh’s award-winning literary collective and arts production house Neu! Reekie! programme one of their signature cross-culture experiences.
KOKOROKO 2020 - creditDannyKasirye
Following the release of his new compilation collection Holm, multi-disciplinary artist and composer Erland Cooper arrives with music from his lauded Orkney trilogy: Solan Goose, Sule Skerry and Hether Blether. Meanwhile, Glasgow-based four-piece Tide Lines perform their trademark anthemic folk rock, rooted firmly in the Highlands, and Edinburgh’s award-winning literary collective and arts production house Neu! Reekie! programme one of their signature cross-culture experiences.
Moses Boyd ©
Jazz is represented across the programme with a genre-blending range of acts, including the soul shaking, horn fuelled sounds of Kokoroko, who breathe new life into afrobeat and highlife, drawing inspiration from West African and London nightlife. Producer-drummer Moses Boyd, one of the most exciting new voices in British jazz, is also on the line-up, along with London’s The Comet is Coming, who return to Edinburgh with their explosive cosmic jazz rave.
University of Edinburgh: Celebrating 70 years of the School of Scottish Studies is a special event programmed by the oldest department of its kind in Scotland, with three solo artists sharing their favourite Scots and Gaelic songs at a daytime concert, and four later performances inspired by the material from the School of Scottish Studies Archives.
General booking opens on Friday 11 June. A full line-up and information on individual concerts can be found at www.eif.co.uk/music
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