The Edinburgh International Festival announced it has sold 8% more tickets in 2012 than at the same time last year.
The 65th EIF kicks off its concert series at the Usher Hall tomorrow with the traditional Opening Concert, Delius’s A Mass of Life, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra led by Sir Andrew Davies.
The performance is supported by Bank of Scotland, a supporter of the Festival since 1947 and winner of the Arts and Business Scotland Sustained Partnership Award 2011.
A Mass of Life is written for what is referred to as a ‘double chorus’ and the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, led by Christopher Bell, will be rise from its usual ranks of around 130 singers to 163 for one night only for this concert.
Orchestra and Chorus are joined by top soloists from Britain, Germany and America - soprano Anna Christy, mezzo soprano Pamela Helen Stephen, tenor Robert Murray and bass baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann.
Rather than taking a religious theme, A Mass of Life is a choral celebration of positivity, of man’s will to embrace the rich possibilities of life and of our potential for strength, energy, pride and sincerity.
A Mass of Life is part of Festival 2012’s celebration of the best of British music and the first of twenty-three concerts taking place at the Usher Hall every evening throughout Edinburgh International Festival with world leading orchestras, conductors and soloists including the Cleveland Orchestra led by Franz Welser-Möst, Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra, Waltraud Meier, Nicola Benedetti, and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées conducted by Philippe Herreweghe.