“Is there a better way to open the most exciting arts festival in the world than by having a world-class orchestra put on a free concert in a football stadium?” as the Edinburgh International Festival did with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on August 2 at Tynecastle Park, writes Margaret Taylor in Tuesday’s (8/6) Herald (Glasgow, Scotland). Festival director Fergus Linehan “has made accessibility one of the watchwords of his tenure, each year putting on a large, free, open-air event … exactly the kind of levelling that the EIF and the many other arts and cultural festivals … should—and do—aim to achieve. That could all be under threat, though, with reports at the weekend revealing that the global artists who help make the EIF such a success are no longer willing to accept payment in pounds, demanding that their fees are paid in dollars or euros instead. [If the festival] budget has to be spread ever-more thinly when converted to spend on the international stage that can only mean … ticket prices will have to rise. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what that would do for inclusivity.”
Posted August 7, 2019
