Dan Daw returns to the Festival with his bold and triumphant dance-theatre workHow do you continue to value yourself when society doesn’t value you? EXXY (Australian slang for, ‘that’s expensive, mate’) takes us back to where queer, disabled artist Dan Daw began – working class, with very little.Dan returns to the Festival after last year’s The Dan Daw Show, this time joined by three extraordinary performers who move like him. Together, they conjure up the tantalising possibility of blending in after a lifetime of standing out. With raw honesty and scorching stagecraft, they ask what it costs to stay at the top of your game when you’ve always been made to feel on the outside.  Visually provocative and threaded with humour, EXXY refuses to offer easy answers. Instead, it invites us into the contradictions Dan Daw embodies: bold yet insecure, triumphant yet uncertain, longing for community, yet determined to be one of a kind. Before each performance there will be an Access Drop-In session. Find out more.There's More Included in your ticket is an afterparty across all floors of the newly refurbished King's Theatre – dance and mingle with the company in a joyful and inclusive party atmosphere. 

Join us for an unconventional, inquisitive and convivial conversation, inspired by our Festival theme.The Global Ideas Stage features intimate dialogues followed by a panel discussion between Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, filmmaker Ken Burns, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson and journalist Amy Goodman.Edinburgh has long been a crucible for ideas. Two and a half centuries ago, pioneering thinkers like Adam Smith and David Hume mingled in coffeehouses, openly debated theories, and envisioned leaps forward in how we understand markets, morality, and the threads that bind human society.Today, the world faces challenges that demand the same combination of insight and imagination, and Edinburgh has become a festival city, spawning ideas and creativity that will shape our future.In collaboration with Professor Adam Dixon and Panmure House, the last home of Adam Smith, we are proud to present a bold new form of public discourse. Curated and hosted by Harvard University professor and award-winning author Sarah Lewis, alongside Festival Director Nicola Benedetti, the inaugural Global Ideas Stage will unite extraordinary thinkers and cultural leaders on stage at the newly redeveloped King’s Theatre. Expect surprise performances from stars of the 2026 programme.Supported by James and Morag AndersonAdditional support for the Festival's return to the King's Theatre is provided by Sir Ewan and Lady BrownCreated in collaboration with Panmure House and Heriot Watt University.

PART OF THE ANDERSON OPERA SERIESZurich Opera presents Giuseppe Verdi’s stunning opera, A Masked Ball, filled with desire, treachery and political peril.Love and deception swirl at the center of Giuseppe Verdi’s stunning opera A Masked Ball (Un ballo in maschera) from Zurich Opera House. Riccardo, the Governor of Boston, is in love with his best friend’s wife. Caught between love and loyalty, Riccardo risks everything – his political standing and even his life. Verdi’s exquisite music comes to life with Gianandrea Noseda conducting Orchestra of the Zurich Opera House. Noseda’s passionate conducting style is perfectly suited for the high-stakes drama central to A Masked Ball. Two stellar casts alternate between performances, with ill-fated lovers Riccardo and Amelia played by Stephen Costello and Elena Stikhina (26 and 30 August), and Piero Pretti and Erika Grimaldi (27 and 29 August).Originally inspired by the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden, Verdi’s subject matter proved too controversial, forcing him to relocate the opera's setting from Sweden to Boston. Now, ‘razor-sharp’ (The Guardian) Welsh director Adele Thomas adds a fresh twist, transporting it to the opulent American Gilded Age, where sinister rumours threaten to spin this ordered world into chaos.Supported byThe Anderson Opera Series, made possible by James and Morag Anderson, allows the Festival to bring internationally acclaimed opera to Edinburgh and ensures these unmissable performances remain accessible to the widest possible audience.With additional support from the Embassy of Switzerland in the UK, the Swiss Cultural Fund UK and the Consulate General of Italy in Edinburgh.Performed in Italian with English surtitlesWhere two performers are listed for one role, the second person named will perform that role on 27 and 29 August.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s choral masterpiece is performed for the first time at the Festival, with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and conductor Rafael Payare.Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's monumental cantata trilogy, The Song of Hiawatha (1899), became a sensation in the early 20th century, regularly selling out the Royal Albert Hall. Inspired by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem about an Ojibwe warrior, the now rarely performed piece is one of Coleridge-Taylor's greatest achievements.  With colourful orchestration and imaginative choral writing, the work explores themes of celebration (Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast), mourning (The Death of Minnehaha) and transcendence (Hiawatha’s Departure). Among the memorable solo numbers are the tenor’s romantic ‘Onaway! Awake, beloved!’ and the baritone’s impassioned ‘Farewell, said he, Minnehaha’. Join the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, conductor Rafael Payare, a trio of star soloists including Scottish tenor Nicky Spence, and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus for the first Festival performance of this choral masterpiece. We have invited Uchenna Ngwe, a specialist in Black British classical music, to introduce its fascinating history.  The orchestra’s second concert, Voices of Canada, features Canadian Indigenous voices and contemporary compositions – their two concerts truly in conversation with each other. with additional support from The Québec Government Office in London Sung in English with surtitles

Rediscover Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, alongside new vocal works paying tribute to Canada’s Indigenous peoples and work by Gabriela Ortiz.In the second concert of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM), Rafael Payare invites audiences to a conversation across time with a powerful programme of music culminating in Richard Strauss’s sumptuous tone poem Ein Heldenleben. With a stirring battle episode, ardent love music and playful quotations from the composer’s earlier works, it is a musical self-portrait both mischievous and deeply moving that takes full advantage of the possibilities of a large orchestra.This monumental staple of the late Romantic period is paired with carefully selected contemporary pieces. Indigenous Canadian sopranos Emma Pennell and Elisabeth St-Gelais join the orchestra for two powerful new vocal works confronting history, memory and the lived experience of Indigenous communities in Canada today.Alongside these, Gabriela Ortiz’s cello concerto Dzonot summons an evocation of the subterranean rivers, caves and stunning wildlife of Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. Ortiz, also featured in the LA Phil’s programme, described it as a ‘form of protest’ responding to our neglect of these valuable ecosystems. It was written for cello soloist Alisa Weilerstein, who plays with ‘directness and insight… technical prowess and depth of feeling’ (The Guardian).Together, they encourage audiences to approach Strauss anew, inviting questions on voice, identity, and our relationship to the natural world.Supported by Léan Scully Endowed Fund with additional support from The Québec Government Office in London

Internationaal Theater Amsterdam reimagines Tony Kushner’s masterpiece in an epic performanceTony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is an epoch-defining work of American theatre. Set at the height of the AIDS crisis, yet enduringly relevant, we follow the story of two very different people grappling with their diagnoses – former drag queen Prior and vindictive lawyer Roy Cohn.Kushner has credited this radical reworking from director Ivo van Hove and Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (ITA) as his favourite version of the play. Taking place on a minimal set accompanied by a David Bowie soundtrack, both parts of the play are combined into one epic performance.    Returning to the Festival after their innovative works, A Little Life (2022) and Penthesilea (2024), ITA presents another pioneering production showcasing their signature wit, stagecraft and incisive storytelling. Angels in America is a gripping and hilarious work reminding us that while change and death are inevitable, the choice to love can be transformative.   Supported by Sir Ewan and Lady Brown with additional support from Robin and Vivienne† Menzies and Performing Arts Fund NL Performed in Dutch with English surtitles 

Kiki Katese returns to the Festival with her groundbreaking Rwandan women’s drumming group for a joyful performance of music and stories. In Rwanda, ‘power’ and ‘drum’ are the same word: ingoma. In 2004, a group of women, seeking to heal after a genocide, made a revolutionary choice. They broke a centuries-old taboo and formed Ingoma Nshya (New Power/ New Drum) – the first all-women drumming ensemble in Rwandan history.  This is their story – a joyous narrative concert featuring an electrifying collection of rhythms, songs and dances from both West and East Africa – some traditional, some brand new.Following Katese’s inspirational The Book of Life (2022 International Festival), this performance delivers its message through music: that discrimination cannot stand in the face of joyful determination. with additional support from Canada Council of Arts and Ontario Arts CouncilPerformed in English with songs in Kinyarwanda  

Journey through music from Europe, Africa and the Americas, from the Baroque period and beyond.Jordi Savall has dedicated decades to the rediscovery and appreciation of early music, and his many accolades now include the 2026 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (often called the Nobel Prize of Music), recognising a lifetime of outstanding contributions.  He returns to the Festival after previous performances with his versatile Hespèrion XXI ensemble.Hespèrion XXI is known for pioneering interpretations of repertoire from the medieval to the Baroque periods. They join Jordi Savall’s Catalan singers, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and Mexican trio, Tembembe Ensamble Continuo, to connect musical languages and influences across Europe, Africa and the Americas.  The ‘sea of music’ honours the millions of victims of the global slave trade and speaks to the cultural legacy of migration and diaspora that shapes our world today. The programme explores Mexican and Spanish repertoire from the Baroque period and expands outwards to embrace music from the 15th to 19th centuries.Supported by the Embassy of Spain in London

The Scottish guitarist’s Festival debut explores Spanish and British music across five centuries. Sean Shibe’s recitals have become known for their startling originality: part concerts, part musical happenings. Described by The Guardian as a ‘truly compelling performer’, the multi-faceted Scottish guitarist frequently engages in a lively dialogue between past and present. This programme of Spanish and British music from across five centuries is no exception.The Renaissance is represented by the graceful fantasias and preludes of Alonso Mudarra, and the sweet melancholy of Shibe’s go-to composer, John Dowland. Joaquín Rodrigo ushers us gently into the 20th century with his exquisitely written Tres piezas españolas (Three Spanish Pieces).The contemporary composers in the programme take their lead from their forbears. Francisco Coll’s new work Sefarad draws on Sephardic folk music, while Thomas Adès’s restless Forgotten Dances suggests music heard long ago, not just rediscovered but reimagined.   Supported by Margaret Duffy and Peter Williamson 

Players from the Berliner Philharmoniker perform an elegant and intimate programme of 19th- and 20th-century chamber works.As part of their International Festival residency, players from the Berliner Philharmoniker perform a delightful programme of chamber works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Piano, strings, clarinet and horn join forces for a memorable close of The Queen’s Hall series. Czech composer Zdeněk Fibich added the rich sonorities of clarinet and horn to the traditional piano trio for his warmly lyrical Quintet in D, inspired by his love for librettist and critic Anežka Schulzová. Johannes Brahms’s soulful trio is one of his ‘autumnal’ late works, which masterfully intertwines the voices of clarinet, piano and cello.  Finally, Ernst von Dohnányi’s colourful sextet was composed for the unusual combination of piano, violin, viola, cello, clarinet and horn. It was written in 1935 when the composer was bedridden with illness, circumstances which make its zest, energy and swagger seem even more astonishing. In Memory of Peter Diamand

Smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul and the genre-crossing Scottish Ensemble explore Celtic music and mythology.Brìghde Chaimbeul (pronounced Breech-huh Campbell) has set the world of Celtic music alight. She pairs mastery of the Scottish smallpipes with a creative, forward-looking approach to the Scottish Gaelic music tradition that has gained her a devoted international fanbase.  Chaimbeul joins forces with Scottish Ensemble, a group of string players renowned for their ambitious cross-genre collaborations. Stunning visuals are provided by filmmaker Jonny Ashworth, one of the creators of Brìghde’s haunting and memorable music videos.  Together, their performance blends new and traditional tunes, electronic sound and bewitching footage of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. It's an exploration of Celtic mythology and storytelling, music emerging from a deep, earthy soundscape of heavy drones. If you’re new to the distinctive sound of the smallpipes, there’s no better place to start.   Produced by Scottish Ensemble. Co-commissioned by Edinburgh International Festival and Eden Court, with support from PRS Foundation's Beyond Borders, the Leche Trust and the Cockaigne Fund, administered by Foundation Scotland. 

An exclusive event for our members. Join our Production Team on stage and take a peek behind the scenes of Clown Show.Go backstage and immerse yourself within the clown’s ‘beautiful big top’, where a crumbling America becomes the set for a chaotic, moving show. See how he builds a world of music, comedy and collapse, asking what remains of the American Dream. A Geoff Sobelle show is always full of surprises – be warned: this backstage tour reveals all!