Bernstein & Stravinsky

Conductor Karina Canellakis returns to the Festival and leads the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO) through a monumental programme featuring Messiaen, Stravinsky and Bernstein.

The in-demand Karina Canellakis returns after making her International Festival debut in the 2023 Closing Concert. She leads this monumental programme with the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the BBC SSO, characterised by thrilling sounds and ideas of love, divine or human.

The moving symphonic work Les Offrandes Oubliées made Olivier Messiaen's name aged just 22, his devout Catholicism driving this three-part meditation on eternal mysteries and human sin.

When the Dean of Chichester Cathedral commissioned Leonard Bernstein to write the Chichester Psalms in 1965, he hinted they'd be delighted if it had ‘something of the West Side Story’ about it. Bernstein came through. Its jazzy inflections promise a thrilling workout for the Festival Chorus and emotive countertenor Hugh Cutting.

For the finale, Igor Stravinsky's dazzling 1911 ballet Petrushka is brilliantly reorchestrated by the composer in 1947 for the concert platform.

Rising Stars of Voice programme joins this performance. Rising Stars gives the world’s most promising young musicians a chance to shine on an international stage.