The Edinburgh International Festival – is one of the world's largest performing arts festivals. It takes place in the Scottish capital annually in August and lasts almost a month.
The Edinburgh Festival is unique in that it features simultaneously theatre, opera, dance and music arts. It includes concerts of classical, orchestral, chamber and vocal music, theatrical performances, opera, dance shows, ballets performed by leading creative groups from many countries around the world. The Edinburgh International Arts Festival is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest in the world.
The festival was established in 1947 with the aim of reviving the humanitarian spirit of European art after the Second World War, as well as maintaining and developing pan-European spiritual values and culture. Quite quickly it became one of the largest art festivals in Europe and then in the world. Currently, the participants of the – festival are creative groups and artists from dozens of countries around the world.
Already the very first festival was divided into an official program and a «informal» part, the last of which appeared thanks to eight theater troupes performing right on the streets of the city. Since then, this tradition has not been interrupted.
Groups and artists selected in advance are invited to the official part of the festival, – according to tradition, the festival director personally sends them invitations. Their performances take place in several central theatres and concert halls in Edinburgh, as well as many other less significant stages. They appear before the audience in the performance of classical music, in dramatic, opera, dance art and other types of creativity.
Traditionally, such world-famous groups as the Scottish Symphony and Chamber Orchestras, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland and Minnesota Orchestras, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and many others take part in the festival. Valery Gergiev and Yuri Bashmet took part here.
Simultaneously with the official program, the «informal» part – festival «Fringe» («Fringe» – extreme, going beyond the generally accepted) – festival of experimental performing arts is taking place, where all interested groups can participate. Traditionally, it starts just before or at the same time as the Edinburgh Festival and ends at the end of August.
Every day, and almost around the clock, during the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, more than 1,000 performances take place at various concert venues in the city. This is a grandiose festive event that pours out of theaters and concert halls directly onto the streets of Edinburgh.
One of the main events of the festival are the evening parades of military bands Military Tattoo, in which orchestras from more than thirty countries around the world show their skills. The festival ends with a grandiose fireworks display in a park near Edinburgh Castle. This is a fantastic colorful fireworks show (Edinburgh Festival Fireworks Concert).
To date, the Edinburgh Festival has deservedly held the title of one of the world's greatest art festivals. Compared to other similar festivals, it takes in general: a variety of art forms, a free, democratic atmosphere, and a interweaving of different cultures and peoples of the world. Each of the listeners and spectators will make many artistic discoveries on it and feel its unique magical atmosphere.