A look back at our 2024 Edinburgh International Festival Residency

This August we returned to the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), where we were one of three ensembles invited to be in residence, with us taking our place alongside the Bamberger Symphoniker and Ilumina.

We travelled up to Scotland to help close the Festival and had a packed few days, with three evening concerts, each of which featured one major work, as well as an afternoon family concert.

For our first concert we were reunited with our Principal Guest Conductor Marin Alsop for the UK premiere of Julia Wolfe’s powerful Fire in my mouth, a piece which tells the story of a New York factory fire which led to the deaths of over 100 workers.

Marin described this as more of an ‘happening’ than a plain concert, and it was definitely as much a visual spectacle as an aural one, so we were delighted to have Mark Kirkham, AKA The Edinburgh Sketcher join us for rehearsals – he shared his brilliant sketch of the event with us afterwards:

Here’s a photograph from the concert, which also featured the brilliant National Youth Choir of Scotland.

The Philharmonia Orchestra, conductor Marin Alsop and the National Youth Choir of Scotland perform Fire in my Mouth. Pic: Jess Shurte

And just one of the many wonderful pieces of feedback we got after the show:

Our residency continued later in the week with a performance of Verdi’s ever-powerful Requiem, conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, our Principal Conductor, and featuring the Edinburgh Festival Chorus.

The next day we reunited with our Artist in Residence from the 23/24 season, violinist Nicola Benedetti. Now Edinburgh International Festival’s Director, Nicki joined us for a joyous Family Concert in which she played The Lark Ascending.

The final concert both of our residency and of the Festival as a whole was a concert performance of Strauss’s Capriccio conducted by Alexander Soddy and starring Malin Byström. The concert was given in memory of conductor Sir Andrew Davis CBE, who was a regular at the Festival and had been due to conduct this performance.

As if this wasn’t enough, away from our concerts at the beautiful Usher Hall we gave an intimate relaxed concert at the Festival’s Broomhouse Community Hub, and also brought our VR experience to the Hub, allowing audiences to be fully immersed in the orchestra.

Our Director of Concerts and Projects, Suzanne Doyle was accompanying the Orchestra on tour and we asked her for her impressions of the Residency:

“Our recent EIF residency really did encompass everything that the Philharmonia can offer: three fantastic performances to rave-reviews, a week of our VR headsets in a digital installation, a family concert with our 23/24 Featured Artist, and EIF Director, Nicola Benedetti and a pop-up concert in a community hub featuring a quintet of Philharmonia musicians performing Julian Milone’s brilliant arrangements. The build up to the residency also encompassed Philharmonia musicians travelling to Edinburgh in advance of the Festival to participate in “NHS Fridays” – bringing music-making to those who are unable to access concert halls.

Edinburgh during festival time comes alive and the buzzing atmosphere is infectious. My personal highlight was the lasting impact of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my Mouth – this powerful work was written to commemorate the 146 workers who perished in a factory fire in what was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York’s history.”