Preview: Music on the Fringe

There’s music for all tastes on the Edinburgh Fringe. Here are a very few examples spanning different genres.  Many more can be found in the ‘Music’ section of the Fringe programme and website. A number of churches continue to offer free day-time concerts, including St Mary’s Cathedral Palmerston Place, and Marchmont St Giles Church.

Folk music

Scottish Storytelling Centre Venue 30a Mairi Campbell ‘Pendulum’  various dates £16

Folk musician Mairi Campbell returns to present all three of her award -winning shows which make up the ‘Pendulum’ Trilogy: ‘Pulse,’ ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and ‘Living Stone.’  Co-created with director Kath Burlinson and co-composer Dave Gray, the shows mix song, humour and visual arts as Mairi explores her life, music and heritage. See all three of her shows on consecutive days.

Music from the Enlightenment

St Mark’s Church Venue 25 Bruntsfield Baroque £15

Talented multi-instrumentalist John Samson celebrates 50 years on the Edinburgh Fringe with four concerts at this venue.  In ‘Bruntsfield Baroque’, he plays recorders with Malcolm Gardner on cello, Sheena Jardine on violin and Frances Scott playing keyboards in a programme of 18th-century sonatas from Enlightenment Edinburgh, when the city was a melting pot of composers from Europe mixing with Scots composers like McGibbon and Oswald.

For more information about John Sampson see Irene Brown’s article: John Sampson and Carol Ann Duffy Return to Fringe with Four Concerts This August – Radio Summerhall Arts

Traditional Jazz

Argyle Cellar Bar Venue 293a Ali Affleck and the Travelling Janes various dates £15

This is one of three shows that American jazz-singer Ali Affleck brings to this popular intimate setting. Long resident in Edinburgh, she has won numerous awards and regularly tours internationally. This new show features an international band of women who play authentic old-time music and know the history. Low-slung blues, scorching swing jazz and crossover folk hits from 1851-1933. Come discover what 'Tents, Trains and Traveling Janes' meant during this pivotal time. Wild music was created and the pioneering bandleaders were wilder!

Ali Affleck also appears at The Jazz Bar Venue 57

Classical Piano

St Vincent’s Chapel Venue 197 Marc Corbett-Weaver 1st August 1930 £15/£7.50 conc

Renowned classical pianist Marc Corbett-Weaver returns to Edinburgh for a dazzling piano recital featuring Beethoven's exciting Waldstein Sonata and the monumental Liszt Sonata in B minor.

Choral Music

St Giles Cathedral Venue 197 NYCOS presents Illuminare and Spirituals 1900 22nd August £16

The National Youth Choir of Scotland - ‘the best choir in Scotland’ says The Herald - perform at the Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert.  They return to Edinburgh for two Fringe concerts under their inspirational director, Christopher Bell, and with Michael Bawtree on piano and organ. In the first, one of America’s leading young composers, Elaine Hagenberg, brings us ‘Illuminare’ – a beautiful and heartwarming work of sweeping melodies and rich harmonies. This is paired with Michael Tippett’s powerful and moving settings of Spirituals from his oratorio ‘A Child Of Our Time’. Their second concert at 2200 features the music of another exciting American composer, Eric Whitacre. Unmissable opportunities to hear this wonderful choir!