What is the Edinburgh International Festival?

Every August, a Scottish city more than 5,000 miles away from San Francisco transforms into an international stage for the performing arts. Edinburgh’s historic streets come alive as some of the world’s finest artists gather to share their work with audience members from around the globe. This summer, for the first time in 23 years, San Francisco Ballet will return to the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival, bringing the European premiere of Aszure Barton and Floating Points’ Mere Mortals to the Edinburgh Playhouse alongside the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

The Edinburgh International Festival was founded in 1947, two years after World War II ended. The idea for the festival was seeded by the Austrian opera impresario Rudolph Bing, who firmly believed that the performing arts would be a powerful agent to uplift people’s spirits and heal a continent divided by war. Nearly eight decades later, that founding vision endures. Now, every summer, Edinburgh becomes what many consider the cultural capital of the world, generating hundreds of millions of pounds for the Scottish economy. Last year, the Festival welcomed audiences from 91 countries, experiencing hundreds of new works spanning music, opera, theater, and dance.

The Edinburgh Playhouse is the UK’s largest all-seated theatre. SF Ballet has performed there twice before: in 1997, when the Company presented works by Helgi Tomasson, Mark Morris, and George Balanchine, and in 2003, with the first mixed bill ever dedicated entirely to works by British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.