Edinburgh Festival All Rise 2026

“I am, All Rise.. look further, look beyond, can’t you see - look higher .

I’m going   to rise and rise.

World-class Opera, Music, Theatre and Dance  Spanning 24 days and 147 performances, 

The Edinburgh International Festival returns 7–30 August 2026. With five world premieres and ten works commissioned by the International Festival, this year marks Nicola Benedetti's fourth year as Festival Director.

Nicola Benedetti - I fell in love with U S of A. instantly. I was 16 years old and within 24 hours my relationship to its “wild, abrasive, exuberant, heart filled yet harsh ferocity was sealed. I was shocked and intoxicated.”

Angels in America

An Enemy of the People

This years program celebrates the ideas and impact of the USA’s 250 years, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

With “recurring themes of freedom and ingenuity, leadership and cruelty, prejudice and perseverance and hypocrisy sit colourfully within proud demarcations of the height of artistic and creative achievement.’ Many of these could happen only in America.  

 

2026 Theme: All Rise  All Rise is a rallying cry encompassing collaboration, resilience and ascendance. 

Marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. To experience themes of freedom, ingenuity, prejudice, and hypocrisy, alongside the creative achievements made possible by the friction and energy of America's cultural melting pot. 

ALL RISE ! With Wynton Marselis

All Rise Opening concert! -

All Rise celebrates togetherness and transcendence.”

The world of the magnificent, the dazzling, the dark, the powerful, the tragic, its extreme, the powerful, the tragic, the 

virtuous, the art of the possible.

Opens with a rise to action, All Rise is an epic symphonic work, by Wynton Marselis, with over 200 performers in a communal journey through 12 stages of living - of Joy, romance, virtuosity, fun and improvisation, our making mistakes and subsequent suffering and ultimate forgiveness, freedom and self knowledge.

 

Opera The 2026 opera programme hosts two staged operas at the Festival Theatre. Verdi's A Masked Ball from Zurich Opera is set in the opulent American Gilded Age, whilst The Galloping Cure, a world premiere from Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s confronts the global opioid crisis. Scottish companies lead the charge with two thrilling operas-in-concert at the Usher Hall.  

TICKETS for Edinburgh International festival 2026 now on sale - https://www.eif.co.uk

The battle of Culloden Confusions?

 

Confusion as there were Scots, Irish and European soldiers on each side. At this time in Scotland there were Whigs, or those that saw unionism as a modern, industrialing and progressive Britain and of exploiting the empire - and those that wanted to preserve Scots culture and voices. 

Unionists like Walter Scott thought we could somehow have both - to preserve this nostalgic Scotland lost and gone forever as he wrote in his novels and also support a supposed “union” with England. He tried to straddle both. 

Scotland’s nationalism was very unique at this time, crossing over to a modern state after the union - while it was too early for any real democracy. According to respected political theorist Tom Nairn. 

Remember at this time only around 5% of land owning men had a vote. There were moves for reform and votes for all men. Robert Burns was a reformer and Jacobin! Even Scott supported the Jacobites as a youth until his father persuaded him for his career to support the union. The union of 1707 was deeply unpopular for its taxes etc. by the ordinary people who rioted in the streets at the time. 

Correcting Scotland’s history mistakes

 

So often, so many mistakes and errors of Scotland’s recorded histories are either ignored, or over written by the powers that be. In encyclopaedias the words Britain and England are conflated constantly – as they are often for Americans. Interchangeable terms, who don’t know their geography.

 

In the National,10 Feb 2026, there was an article on a book entitled: 

Queen James, the Life and Loves of Britain’s first King. 

 

Error! Britain did not come into existence until 1707 after the Union of the Parliaments.

James Stewart (1567-1603) was King of the 'kingdom of Scotland' -  and after the Union of the Crown, was king of both the 'kingdom of England' and the 'kingdom of Scotland'  from 1603 to 1625.  (James worked to encourage a Britain, to secure his position on the English throne no doubt (after the death fo Elizabeth Tudor of England.) 

 

The Scottish Parliament had sat for 200 years before this union – latterly sitting in St Giles.  

When I look back and read of the Scotland before union 1707, the once independent Scotland is a different country. Its a place of a confident trading nation, with the exchange of people and ideas across the continents – to Flanders Japan, the Americas. Historian Tom Devine says that Scotland has for centuries has long been an outward looking country. 

 

The Wars of Independence with Wallace and Bruce 1314, were in fact Wars of Succession, ad civil wars. Because before this Scotland had always been an independent nation! Scotland’s first king was Kenneth I was King of dal Raida (841-850) and King of the Picts (848-858)

From the time of the Scottish Reformation (1560- 1640)  Scotland’s scholars went to Paris university to study and to teach. Education was greatly encouraged for all young boys. Form 1750 to 1790 there was the Scottish enlightenment. Scots were part of the American founding fathers.

 

The Big Questions facing Scotland today are – is this is a union of two kingdoms supposedly, there therefore must be a route out of this failing union. 

Its time we pointed out these important and crucial errors, which happen constantly. Ignorance of the past does not help our views of the present realities or our futures. There is not enough history taught in schools across Britain -  compared to elsewhere. So that both sides of the border, people have more knowledge and understanding of the true histories of both Scotland and England.

Kenneth I

Olde England as Britain?

 

I picked up a Sunday Times magazine recently – and there was an article with the headline In Search of Olde England - under a photo of Olde England Morris dancers, which reviewed the book - Finding Albion Myth, Folklore, and the Quest for a Hidden Britain by Zakia Sewell. Sewell writes that she is the “least likely person to go searching for Olde England, or to give it its grown up name Albion.” 

She speaks of the ‘stale history” of Albion or England as Britain – but is she writing of an unreal “Britain” or the 4 nations of the UK? Perhaps stale because this 'Britain' she searches for is not real, not a country with a defined identity, and has no hinterland. Britain is actually four ancient nations!

I looked up the meaning of ‘Albion’, which is supposed to stand for ‘Britain’. Its no wonder many are confused, the terms England as Britain are interchangeable and the same. (On the very same page a respected Irish author spoke of Elizabeth as the Queen of England!) 

Most Americans interchange England and Britain, as meaning the same nation. Its hardly surprising as encyclopaedias, radio, tv and media articles and broadcasts do the very same thing! Where does this leave the other three nations of the UK? As mere regions of England/ Britain?  

Where on earth do the ancient nations of Scotland, Ireland and Wales fit into this narrative - with not one mention, as if their contribution, language, culture and music are of no significance. 

 

Sewell is searching for Britain as England’s “stale old island story” 

She feels there is wisdom to be found in tradition. In the Hebrides she visited Imbole, a Celtic festival to mark the winter solstice and spring equinox. She celebrated Samhaim in haunted York, and attended the Notting hill carnival.

Sewell’s love of urban music drew her to a career as a presenter on Radio Six music. Her father is Welsh and her mother from the Caribbean. 

She wants to counter balance the far rights use of the English flag, to follow Albion as Britain folk ways in order to resolve her mixed heritage. In the Caribbean Granadines, the locals have long played down folk practices of the ‘other world’ such as ritual dance or drumming, not wanting to appear backward. This is colonization of the mind, were language was used to suppress different cultures. And the portrayal of local cultures as less worthy or “backward.”

 

England as a nation certainly appears to have lost is sense of itself – it still has its Constitution of 1688, castles, monarchy, Tudors - all from !600s. but with London now being a melting pot, I’m not sure – what is England/ Britain’s, national identity, lost in this empire building, what is its national costume? Or national sense of itself outside of football or the red cross of St George? 

 

Britain is in fact a landmass, not a country. Britain only came into existence after the union of the parliaments in 1707. But what is Britain or UK as a country? It is not a country with any hinterland or sense of itself – apart from the world war one and the Victorian empire. But the British empire is bland and about elitism and barely taught in schools, even as the empire existed for many centuries and shaped how this Britain as England sees itself.

 

She claims there are signs of a “weird renaissance” bubbling in Britain as England, but her grasp of historical context is severely missing, as she skims the mere surface here. I guess she is searching for a lost 'England as Britain'. In urban London much culture is a cosmopolitan world culture – as heard in the Americanisation of the Brits award show, in London Pop culture and elsewhere. 

 

In this narrative there is not one mention of Scotland, Ireland or Wales – as if they don’t even exist or have any relevance or impact. Ignorance of history in this ‘Albion’ is clearly deep rooted.

England as Britain urgently needs to move from being an archaic state to a modern one – one that no longer controls and exploits an empire. 

“Scotland is a country NOT a county!”! Alex Salmond

 

**BOOKS*: For a deeper history of Scots and Celtic cultures I recommend 

Stuart McHardy’ Scotland’s Future History, 

Tom Devine, A Scottish Nation 1707 to present

Alan Raich - Arts of the Nation