Fergus Linehan: The Eclectic International

This year, Fergus Linehan steps up to his first programme as artistic director of the Edinburgh International Festival. "So far it’s been fine but we haven’t done anything yet, so we’ll see. Ask me in five or six weeks," he jokes, before following up to clarify, "We’re in really good shape and I’m just really looking forward to August."

Linehan’s professional history spans from Dublin to Australia and now to Edinburgh. "Well, if you’re going to end up working the festival world, this is the granddaddy of them all. It’s the great festival city really, so it’s sort of the logical place to end up," he says, alluding to the capital's strong cultural history, particularly during the month of August. "I’ve always loved Edinburgh. I took almost a year off a few years ago and I lived here. I’ve always had a connection to the city, I guess because I just felt that there’s work I could do with the International Festival that would be really interesting, and it’s an interesting time so it just felt like a good move."

The interesting work that Linehan speaks of includes both small and drastic changes, some of which have already happened. Not least are the changed dates: "When you’re looking at these kind of festivals from the outside coming in, you have certain assumptions you make and then you kind of have to get in and really talk to people. I still think in a way you also want to remember your experience as someone who used to come along and buy tickets, that’s very valuable. One of the things that used to really annoy me was coming to the International Festival and all the other festivals had finished. The big thing for me about Edinburgh was always going along to great theatre companies or great concerts, but also having even things like the Tattoo, or the Book Festival, and having that sort of sense of this incredible excitement on the streets." It wasn’t an easy change to make and not one that Linehan took lightly, or took entirely upon himself, but the logic of it can’t be argued with. 

There were other changes too. "Broadening the definition of our music programme was important, mostly because I think that people have got quite eclectic tastes," Linehan continues. "They might like some Vivaldi but they might also like Leonard Cohen or whatever else." The music tradition that already existed in Scotland helped, with Linehan citing "incredibly artful, adventurous" music from Postcard Records to Mogwai to Belle and Sebastian to the electronic scene. "There’s always been in Scotland – it hasn’t just been three chord rock and roll – there’s always been a really interesting approach to popular music.” 

This is well represented in the programme with performances like FFS [Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, interviewed elsewhere in these pages], ‘two iconic bands joining together in a bold, new creative endeavour,’ according to the EIF Programme, and a screening of Virginia Heath’s documentary From Scotland with Love alongside a live score from King Creosote. This, alongside the Robert Glasper Trio, Anna Calvi and more are part of the Russian Standard Vodka Hub Sessions. The Robert Glasper Trio’s intermixing of jazz with urban music might just capture exactly what Linehan is trying to do: presenting amazing, top-level classical music alongside the same in a wide range of popular music, treating the mediums with equal weight. "Rather than me saying, ‘I like this particular type of music so I’m going to make you all listen to it,' it was more just trying to reflect the fact that people’s musical taste has got incredibly diverse," he explains, and he has definitely captured that diversity.

His third change comes right at the start of the festival with The Harmonium Project, a free event kicking off the festival on 7 August. "I personally really like doing big, outdoor events. The fact that we now have our programming beginning at the beginning of the festival season, finding a way to mark that with a free, outdoor event that is still about what we do – music at a really high level – but where anyone could come along, and in a way that’s quite spectacular and celebratory to mark the beginning of the festival with something that’s for the city.

"The thing that’s unique about Edinburgh is, you know, you’ve got people doing things incredibly informally but you also have got the best actors or the best musicians." Putting together his programme, Linehan talks about finding those who are the best at what they do and bringing them to Edinburgh. "I approached it from the point of view of 'these are just artists that I really like,'” he says and his tastes are certainly ones that would be classed high above ‘good’. "In theatre, Robert Lepage, Simon McBurney, these are just the great directors of our time. Ivo van Hove, these are some of the giants. I just went into conversations with them about building that structure."

Robert Lepage brings the European premiere of 887 with Canadian theatre company Ex Machina. Lepage brings his personal memories as a French-speaking child from the October Crisis of 1970 and mixes this story of political unrest with modern technology, questioning the role of past remembrance in an age that now stores everything digitally.

Ivo van Hove directs the much-anticipated Antigone starring Juliette Binoche as the titular heroine (or traitor); a fine example of the greatest actors, directors and theatre makers coming to Edinburgh. This contemporary production of one of the great classic theatre works speaks again to Linehan’s desire to bring diversity to his programme. Antigone may not be a rarely-performed text, but van Hove’s interpretation is sure to bring something new and unique to the play. 

In opera, EIF presents the world premiere of The Last Hotel, as a new chamber opera joins together one of Ireland’s great composers, Donnacha Dennehy, with one of their greatest and darkest playwrights, Enda Walsh, and conductor André de Ridder who has collaborated in the past with Bryce Dessner and Damon Albarn. This sits beside much more classical opera concerts such as The Marriage of Figaro and The Rake’s Progress. Again, the programme reflects diversity. 

Dance sees the final world tour of ‘one of the greatest dancers of her generation’, Sylvie Guillem, programmed next to TAO Dance Theatre's ritualistic aesthetic next to Ballett Zürich in a double bill featuring their artistic director Christian Spuck and British choreographer Wayne McGregor, both internationally acclaimed. 

"It’s always a mix of things you really, really like which has to be the starting point and then things that will work in the overall mix. I think really great theatre, really great dance, really great orchestral music is a very, very important part of the overall mix of the whole festival season." Alongside the popular and the contemporary, Linehan’s first programme as artistic director is set to be memorable and exciting. It’s clear to see why he’s looking forward to August.