Edinburgh International Festival has a long history of championing the work of persecuted and oppressed nations. Major theatre, music and dance from the former Eastern bloc, the African diaspora and the First Nations of Australia and Canada rarely seen beyond their own borders have all been given a platform in Edinburgh for all the world to see.
A sense of international inclusion has always transcended those borders for EIF, ever since the first festival in 1947 was conceived to heal the wounds of war. While this is still the case, it is telling that the focus of EIF’s 2026 programme is on America. In honour of the 250thanniversary of American independence, what is left of the home of the brave and land of the free is represented throughout a programme even more tellingly named All Rise. This is named after the opening concert by jazz musician and composer Wynton Marsalis, who will perform it with the New York based Lincoln Center Orchestra, led by Marsalis since 1991.
Marsalis’ epic jazz symphony was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic in 1999, and features a glorious melting pot influenced by African chant, New Orleans parade music, gospel, symphonic modernism and Latin-based music. All nations are in there somewhere in a way embraced by EIF.
While such an open egalitarian spirit of 1776 prevails throughout the All Rise programme, given the ongoing state of political play in America just now, and for all EIF’s artistic celebration has been long in the planning, there is also a very large baseball cap-wearing elephant in the room. As EIF has always done since 1947, however, there is no need to point the finger in any manifesto-like public statement. What is happening is pretty obvious, and in a spirit of diplomacy that again has always prevailed, EIF prefers to let the work do the talking.
Such a sleight of hand has often made EIF’s programmes far more radical than it is sometimes given credit for. In a programme of work either by American artists or about America that sits alongside concerts and productions from other countries including Brazil, Rwanda, Lebanon, and Palestine. All Rise is no different.
As well as Marsalis, All Rise features a residency from the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with a programme of Duke Ellington, while the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America mixes and matches George Gershwin with Béla Bartók. The LA Phil will also be in residence.
Outwith the U.S, the Sinfonia of London look at film music from The Golden Age of Hollywood, while the Colin Currie Group plays modern classics by Steve Reich. This Shining Night, meanwhile, sees the Edinburgh Festival Chorus join forces with an ensemble of Rising Stars for a concert of works by contemporary composers, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Nico Muhly and Caroline Shaw.
In opera, American composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavreck present their opera, The Galloping Cure, in collaboration with Scottish Opera.
In theatre, Flemish wunderkind Ivo van Hove’s epic revival of Tony Kushner’s play, Angels in America, revisits Kushner’s 1991 meditation on AIDS in 1980s America that fuses the play’s two parts into a solitary five-and a half hour experience that features a soundtrack of songs by David Bowie.
Four Walls and a Roof, meanwhile, sees Lebanese duo Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroue look at McCarthy era censorship through theatre in the context of repression of free speech today.
Also returning to EIF is Geoff Sobelle, whose Clown Show sets out its store in a clapped out circus where the only ones left to run things are the clowns. This promises to ramp up the absurdities and ridiculousness behind the farcical façade of those in power.
New York’s Flea Theater present Pulitzer Prize finalist Zora Howard’s play, The Hang Time, which looks at the lingering legacy of slavery through the voices of three black men who chew the fat under a tree. This ties in with The Legacy of Slavery, a comprehensive history of racial injustice presented by America’s Legacy Museum at the University of Edinburgh’s Playfair Library.
In dance, San Francisco Ballet leads an international collaboration in Mere Mortals, which sees choreographer Aszure Ray explore AI with an electronic score by Samuel Shepherd, aka Floating Points, who has previously worked with jazz saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders.
Scottish company Groupwork, meanwhile, revisit their fascinating dance theatre piece, When Prophecy Fails, which looks at a 1950s UFO doomsday cult in mesmerising fashion, as its Edinburgh premiere in early 2025 demonstrated in thrilling fashion. Like Angels in America, When Prophecy Fails charts the need of a disenfranchised society to believe in something, be it angels, extra-terrestrials or the seemingly hollow promises of late twentieth century capitalism that has fuelled so much great American art.
Through this, EIF offers up a state of independence that shows that, whatever else is going on, even after 250 years, the voice of America – the artistic voice of America - is still here, and still living through these times in all its forward thinking diversity. The American dream isn’t over yet. Glory, glory, hallelujah to that.
The Herald, March 12th 2026
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