BBC Radio 3 brings the best of Edinburgh International Festival to audiences at home and across the world in the festival's 70th anniversary year.
Radio 3 is the official broadcaster of the Edinburgh International Festival, through live and recorded concerts available on radio and online.
Radio 3’s predecessor the Third Programme broadcast from Edinburgh at the very first International Festival in 1947, and with both cultural institutions in their 70th year, Radio 3 will mark the occasion with additional programming, starting on 5 August - the first day of the festival - with all Radio 3 programming between 7am and 1:30pm broadcast from Edinburgh.
Breakfast
7am-9am
Live from the BBC’s Edinburgh Festivals hub in the grounds of George Heriot’s School Martin Handley presents an eclectic mix of music reflecting events at the Festival.
Summer Record Review
9am -11am
Andrew McGregor presents Summer Record Review live from the Edinburgh Festival discussing classic Festival recordings with guests Kate Molleson and Flora Willson; and Philip Hobbs about the Glasgow-based Linn label.
Edinburgh International Festival 2017
11am - 1pm
The Dunedin Consort launch the 2017 Queen's Hall series live from Edinburgh with a programme featuring a recently rediscovered work by Monteverdi as well as a number of instrumental and vocal works by contemporary German and Italian composers.
Froberger: Toccata in G Major
Monteverdi: Armato il cor
Monteverdi: Zefiro torna
Marini: Passacaglio à 4
Schütz: Güldne Haare, gleich Aurore
Buxtehude: A-major sonata
Schütz: O süsser, o freundlicher
Schütz: Es steh Gott auf
Rosenmüller: Sonata No. 7 à 4 in D Minor
Monteverdi/Schütz: Combattimento
Performed by:
Sophie Bevan, soprano
Nicholas Mulroy, tenor
Dunedin Consort
Dunedin Consort Director John Butt, harpsichord
Nothing Short Of A Miracle
1pm-1.30pm
Jim Naughtie reflects on the origins of what has become the world's greatest arts festival – Edinburgh International Festival – with contributions from those who attended the first festivals in the 1940s and music from early performances. The Festival was founded 70 years ago in the aftermath of World War Two. With 1947 being a year of shortages and rationing, the idea of starting an arts festival in Scotland's capital city must have seemed highly ambitious. Yet with the support of figures such as the Lord Provost of Edinburgh and Rudolf Bing, the challenge was undertaken and has proved to be the international success that has so far lasted 70 years.
Publicity contact: BBC Radio 3 Publicity
