Eclectic line-up for festival
When Australian composer Jonathan Mills was first appointed director of the Edinburgh International festival four years ago, one London-based critic was quick to dismiss him as a "minnow".
And while it's fair to say few people on this side of the world knew him well, in the four years since, he's worked hard to prove he's a big fish worth catching.
His fourth festival programme - announced in Edinburgh on Wednesday morning - finds him in familiar territory, marking the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the new world.
Australia is represented - of course - with a new opera by Opera Australia based on the Peter Carey novel Bliss.
Art form
The Americas are represented by Porgy and Bess (although performed by Opera De Lyon with French hip hop dance as an aside) and Gospel at Colonus, which will feature both the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Abyssinian Chancel Choir from Harlem.
There's also a new work by the Wooster Group as well as a festival debut for Chilean companies Teatro Cinema and Teatro en el Blanco.
Closer to home, the festival will work once more with the National Theatre of Scotland and director Anthony Neilson and the Paco Pena Flamenco Dance Company to create a production about the failed attempt by Scotland to establish a colony in Panama.
The dance programme features work from Brazil, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands while the music programme features the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Slap bang
And while there are those who may miss the regulars Mills' predecessor Brian McMaster brought to the capital, or bemoan the need for themes at all, in the current climate, getting such an eclectic international line-up to Edinburgh, on time and on budget, is an art form in itself.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh City Council has confirmed that Creative Scotland will have its main base in Edinburgh.
The body - which will come into being in June - will be based in a yet to be named city centre location (while the city council will take over the Scottish Arts Council's current building in the city's west end).
'Hotdesking policy'
Edinburgh cultural bodies are cockahoop - not least the festivals - but there's a "plus ca change" feeling around the rest of the country, particularly from those arts organisations well beyond the central belt.
Dundee - where the transition body was based - would have sent out the message that the new body was slap bang in the middle of the country.
Glasgow at least retains the Scottish Screen offices - so a city centre presence for the new re branded organisation.
Creative Scotland insist they'll have a "hotdesking policy" which will ensure the new body is relevant and accessible across the whole of the country.
We'll have to wait till June to see how that works.
Not London’s South Bank, but the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow - every bit as lively in cultural terms as its namesake. I’m Pauline McLean, 91Èȱ¬ Scotland’s arts correspondent, and I’ll be blogging here about arts events and issues happening across the country.
Comment number 1.
At 17th Mar 2010, Polliemac wrote:Thanks to the sharp eyed correspondent who pointed out I'd managed to merge two distinct shows at this year's festival. Paco pena flamenco dance company will be bringing their own show Quimeras to the 2010 festival (although if you ask me, it's a collaboration just waiting to happen!)
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Comment number 2.
At 20th Mar 2010, Tam Pollard wrote:I must say, I'm a little curious on what basis this is the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the new world. Then again, it's closer to the truth than the 300 year figure quoted on the pre-publicity material at the end of last year:
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