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Thu 17 Mar 2005

A programme of workshops and events will work behind the scenes to complement this year’s Festival experience for hundreds of local Edinburgh and Lothian children and adults.

The Bank of Scotland Connecting to Music project has this year hosted 1,800 pupils at workshops in The Hub. Three half day sessions help each students to learn how to listen to and appreciate music, and examine their responses. This year with added support from Bank of Scotland the project was also able to tour to the Western Isles and Banffshire.

During the Festival period, the Bank of Scotland Connecting to Music workshops will focus on Beethoven Symphony No 7, the music for this year’s Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert.

Pennsylvania Ballet, based in Philadelphia, opens Festival 2005’s dance programme with Christopher Wheeldon’s Swan Lake. In addition to their Festival performances, members of their specialist education team will visit Edinburgh schools to work with local children aged 10 – 11. The workshops will help the children explore Swan Lake in preparation for seeing the Festival performances.

The Festival and The Herald newspaper continue to work together going into four Edinburgh schools to introduce young people to the process of arts criticism in Young Critics. The project culminates in the opportunity to review performances at the Festival, with selected reviews printed in The Herald.

The Festival’s partnership with Edinburgh’s Dancebase continues with masterclasses by international dance maker Sasha Waltz and the Director of Pennsylvania Ballet during the first week of the Festival.

A further programme of workshops, masterclasses and seminars, part of this year’s Festival initiative with The Royal Bank of Scotland will be announced in June 2005.

The Edinburgh Festival Creative Fellowship is an affiliation between the Edinburgh International Festival and The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Edinburgh University. Each Fellowship lasts twelve months and the chosen artist receives £10,000 and a work space at the faculty, giving them access to cross discipline debate and the opportunity to develop their creative thinking in a supportive environment.

This collaboration is now approaching its third year. At the end of March, current Fellow David Harrower finishes his Fellowship, during which he created Blackbird, premiering at the Festival this year. Stuart MacRae, young Scottish composer and the Festival’s first musical Fellow, will take up his post on 1 April and through his Fellowship year will work on a new commission for the Festival.

ENDS/

For more information please contact Susie Burnet or Jackie Westbrook in the EIF press office on 0131 473 2020 or press@eif.co.uk