Tickets for Festival Fireworks Concert To Go Online

Submitted by edg on Thu, 23 Jul '09 3.18pm

The next chance to buy tickets for the Festival Fireworks Concert - the explosive  finale to the Edinburgh International Festival - is Monday 27 July when an allocation of tickets goes on sale

online from 11.00am.

This year the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert opens with the world famous theme music to the Champions League and includes modern wedding favourite, Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.

100,000 fireworks will shoot into the sky over Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens on Sunday 6 September from 9pm in a magical 45 minutes must see match up of live music and a choreographed fireworks display.

The fireworks display can be seen from vantage points around the city (see our Festival Fireworks Concert page), but the tickets to the concert in the gardens, directly beneath the castle remain highly coveted.

Program

The music, a selection of some of Handel's most popular works, will be performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Matthew Halls.

The Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert is the largest annual event of its kind in Europe and last year this hugely popular event drew an audience of around a quarter of a million people viewing from vantage points across the Scottish capital.

The fireworks display is designed by internationally-acclaimed fireworks artist Keith Webb of Pyrovision and includes four tones of explosives, and hundreds of firing sequences, including the famous waterfall cascading from Edinburgh Castle.

The concert opens with Zadok the Priest, which football fans across the globe will recognise as the anthem played before every UEFA Champions League match. Handel composed the piece for the coronation of George II in 1727, and the music has been sung at every subsequent coronation service.

Excerpts from Music for the Royal Fireworks follows. Handel composed this music in 1749 for a fireworks display in London's Green Park to celebrate the end of the war of Austrian Succession.

The fireworks continue to a piece of music which is a favourite at weddings across the world, and which some brides choose to accompany them up the aisle - The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from the oratorio Solomon.

The concert reaches a soaring conclusion to the Hallelujah Chorus from the oratorio, Messiah - Handel's most famous work.

An allocation of Gardens tickets for the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert is released for sale at 11am on Monday 27 July online at www.eif.co.uk/bankofscotlandfireworksconcert. These are limited to four per person.

The final allocation of Gardens tickets will go on sale for counter sales only at Hub Tickets on Sunday 30 August at 10am.

The first allocation of Garden tickets were sold via a postal ballot.