Edinburgh Festival Fireworks 2011

Fringe reviews

Recycling

Edinburgh International Festival on the radio

Forth Road Bridge

Travelling Gallery

Have you seen the best show at the Fringe? Then share your review with us here!

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From 1 September 20,000 households across the city who already have green wheelie bins for waste, will receive the new recycling service. There is a map below to check if your street is on the list.

The individual properties affected will get a leaflet the week beginning Monday 21 July, with more information about the changes. Properties that have shared waste bins will not be affected.

An information pack will also be sent out before the start of the new service. This will contain a calendar and a recycling guide. You can download the information pack below to find out more about how the service is changing and what you have to do.

Click to access Phase_1_map__new_recycling_service.pdf

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Nicola Benedetti with an ensemble of her regular collaborators performed Brahms and Shostakovich in the first concert of BBC Radio 3’s series of Festival 2014 live broadcasts this week.

As the home of classical music, BBC Radio 3 has broadcast from Edinburgh International since the very dawning of the Festival. The broadcasts are part of BBC Radio 3’s annual commitment to covering the classical riches the festival has on offer and in 2006 the station expanded its coverage to include the introduction of 3 weeks of live morning concert broadcast from Queen’s Hall. Many regular shows such as BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast, drive time In Tune programme and The Early Music Show cover the Festival. BBC Radio 3 also broadcasts a selection of recorded evening Edinburgh International Festival concerts in the autumn after the end of the BBC Proms season, bringing the total to 22 concerts. The concerts are also shared through BBC Radio 3’s relationship with the European Broadcasting Union and other international broadcasters which last year saw the Festival’s concerts reaching listeners in over 35 countries worldwide.

This year’s coverage of The Queen’s Hall weekday morning concerts includes programmes reflecting one of the Festival’s overarching themes – the commemoration of the outbreak of World War One; Ian Bostridge reveals responses to conflict in songs by Kurt Weill and Benjamin Britten (12 August); Simon Keenlyside brings together songs from George Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad (20 August); while Anne Sofie von Otter andDaniel Hope perform songs and instrumental music from Terezin, a concentration camp north of Prague (25 August).

BBC Radio 3 will also broadcast six concerts from the Usher Hall over a week in September– the Opening Concert with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Oliver Knussen(15 September), Ute Lemper with Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster (16 September), Collegium Vocale Gent directed by Philippe Herreweghe (17 September)and the I, CULTURE Orchestra with conductor Kirill Karabits(18 September), and BBC SSO and Ilan Volkov performing Jonathan Mills’s Sandakan Threnody (19 September)– all for future broadcast in September in Live in ConcertHolst’s The Planets performed by the BBC SSO and Concerto Italiano’s beautiful programme of early music from Greyfriars Kirk will be transmitted BBC Radio 3 this autumn.

Jonathan Mills, Festival Director, said: “Working with BBC Radio 3 to bring the Festival’s concerts to people not able to join us in Edinburgh is incredibly valuable. We are delighted to be broadcasting 22 concerts with them this year and hope that audiences around the world will tune in to enjoy them.”

Donald MacLeod, presenter of the concerts on BBC Radio 3, said “For a few years now I’ve had the privilege of being able to sit up in the balcony of The Queen’s Hall and enjoy music-making of consistently outstanding quality, introducing the artists and their programmes to the radio audience not lucky enough to be able to be there in person. There’s always a buzz of anticipation in the hall which comes across on the live broadcast and each year this beautifully-planned series offers up a series of stellar performances. I am looking forward to another year of wonderful music and hope you will tune in and join us direct from Edinburgh.”

 

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The Art of Crossing 15cmIn the year the Forth Road Bridge turns 50, a new exhibition running at Hopetoun House, South Queensferry, captures one woman’s very special relationship with this iconic structure, revealing it from some unique and challenging perspectives.

Zero to Fifty: the Road Bridge Diaries is the culmination of renowned landscape artist Kate Downie’s commission as artist in residence at the Bridge.  The exhibition, which launches on 9 August, will be a highlight of the Forth Bridges Festival, a key event in the Homecoming Scotland 2014 calendar, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Forth Road Bridge.

At the heart of the exhibition will be Kate’s limited edition commemorative print, ‘The Art of Crossing’ and an innovative audio-visual installation which is a soundscape filmed and recorded directly underneath the Bridge on the maintenance deck. Below brings to life the whole experience of how hard the structure works around the clock and the cacophony of the traffic pounding across it daily.  Supporting works include drawings, sketches and paintings created in pastels, ink, charcoal and watercolour.

Commenting on her experience Kate said:  “My residency has been like an in-depth interview with a very large object, from which I have gained a sense of the important part bridges play in everyday life.  I have seen the Bridge from above, below and even hanging over the side and I realise it may be spun from steel, but it is also spun by stories and it is where human life meets engineering.

“Sitting alongside its older neighbour, the rail bridge, and its embryonic new arrival, the Queensferry Crossing, the Forth Road Bridge is almost unassuming in appearance, but vital in design.  It has played an important part on the Firth of Forth for the past 50 years and for me, this residency has been a logical, amazing and unique next step in my fascination with capturing bridges and civil engineering in a variety of media.

“In years to come, this trio of bridges will be celebrated for their very individuality and their collective emotional impact which will, I am quite sure, capture the imaginations of artists for generations to come.”

Lesley Hinds, convenor of FETA, added: The appointment of an artist-in-residence is a first for the Bridge Authority and forms a particularly important part of the 50th anniversary programme.  We hope Kate’s work will encourage us all to look at the Bridge from a different perspective, beyond its everyday function as a piece of transport infrastructure, or even as a great piece of engineering.

“This exhibition is a fitting finale to Kate’s residency and a unique opportunity for young and old alike to visit the exhibition and get their own sense of what the Bridge is all about.”

Zero to Fifty: The Road Bridge Diaries is a free exhibition running daily from 10.30 am – 5 pm from 9 August to 13 September.

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Where will the Travelling Gallery be this week? Well outside the City Art Centre it seems!
Wednesday 13 August – City Art Centre, 2 Market Street, Edinburgh EH1 1DE. 10am – 5pm
Thursday 14 August – City Art Centre, as above. 10am – 9pm as part of Art Late North
Friday 15 August – City Art Centre
, as above. 10am – 5pm

 

 

 

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.