Reviews & features: Music

Music highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

Melvyn Tan and Bamberg Symphony Orchestra among picks

Melvyn Tan. The Queen's Hall morning concerts can usually be relied on for a few Festival surprises. Hearing perfectly formed piano music by 18th century Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti alongside Sonatas and Interludes by 20th century American John…

Hitlist - The best events, talks and sport

• Cut the Carbon rally Soweto Kinch, local hobbit Billy Boyd, Harry Potter snogger Katie Leung (pictured) and musician Amy MacDonald are part of a star-studded line-up at the Edinburgh leg of this Christian Aid-run rally to raise awareness of…

Trad on the Tyne 31 Aug - 2 Sept features Daimh, Siobhan Miller and Wendy Stewart

2012 Trad on the Tyne will Steele the Show on the small festival circuit

Recently shortlisted for the Scottish Event Awards - BestSmall Festival, Trad on the Tyne (31 August - 2 September 2012) is a festival of music and plenty more! A festival feast in more ways than one; the programme includes last year’s Celtic…

Scotrail announce expanded Edinburgh Festival 2012 train timetable

Additional night services to Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and North Berwick

New late-night train services to and from Edinburgh will make it easier for those outside the city to visit the 2012 festival. In Glasgow, there will be a Fringe box office at Queen Street station from July 27. Tickets bought online in advance can be…

First raft of shows from 2012 Edinburgh Fringe programme

Stewart Lee, Jimmy Carr, Rhod Gilbert and more to appear at Fringe 2012

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has revealed around 60 shows to take place at this year's event in August. The announcement comes weeks before the full line-up announcement on Thu 31 May. Comedy shows form the bulk of the latest show announcements…

Tinchy Stryder to take over the HMV Picture House

The East London grime boy done good, and Third Strike is on its way

If Tinchy Stryder’s second long-player, Catch 22, saw him vault the grime underground and snare the pop mainstream (number one hits, collaborations with N-Dubz and a Sugababe, the best-selling UK solo artist of 2009), you wonder what level of stardom…

Meow Meow – Feline Intimate

The post modern showgirl delivers a unique type of cabaret

With more purr than a panther, divine diva Meow Meow slinks back to this year’s Fringe with her unique brand of kamikaze cabaret kitsch. With sell-out shows around the world and the likes of David Bowie on her fan list, Meow Meow’s hypnotic performance…

Hey, Piano Bar Lady!

Musical comedy taking it back to 80s New York via New Zealand

New Zealand singer Linn Lorkin is perched at her keyboard, tousled red hair, whimsical expression and billowing patchwork dress suggesting she’s quite the eccentric dame. Now in its second year at the Fringe, her one-woman biographical show is a…

The Lost Fingers - Lost in the 80s

Skillful gypsy jazz paired up with an inspired choice of cover versions

‘We’re kinda known for taking cheese and making it better,’ declares one of Québécoise gypsy-folk interpretation trio The Lost Fingers (they’re named after Django Reinhardt’s disappeared digits), although not everyone might go along with their…

Programme for the Edinburgh International Festival 2013 puts artists and technology centre-stage

Tod Machover, the Wooster Group and Oper Frankfurt among the EIF programme highlights

A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with…

7x7th Street

Interactive sounds sculptures create a musical promised land

Seven and seven is, well, a very magic number indeed in Jean Pierre Muller's walk-through collaboration with musical icons including Robert Wyatt, Nile Rodgers, Archie Shepp and Terry Riley. Free-associating ideas based around the number seven (days a…

Folk at the Pleasance

An enjoyable variety of folk music in a relaxed and intimate setting

This folk session is led by a tentative, yet somehow regal Sophie Ramsay, who in her flowing red dress and tumbling brown hair resembles a folky Kate Bush. After a soft introduction the Scottish songstress performs two songs, the first a melancholic…

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012: Music highlights

Steamy samba, sleazy-noir synths and goth-pop to feature at Fringe

Brazil! Brazil! Presents Favela Funk Party. The 2010 success of Brazil! Brazil! brought the steamy sounds and sights of samba to the festival and the same people behind that glory deliver an explosion of favela funk and samba reggae. Among the acts…

Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2011 - Highlights

Brass bands on bikes among highlights of music extravaganza

Have you ever wondered if you are a 'Bad Scot'? If soor plooms, Mel Gibson's take on William Wallace, dodgy recitals of Burns' poems and other things associated with stereotypical Jock culture make you recoil like a moggie from a festering puddle, you…

Julian Lloyd Webber and the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra String Ensemble

Another unlikely Fringe debutante in the shape of cellist Lloyd Webber

Five firsts at the Fringe for Edinburgh Youth Orchestra which breaks fresh ground this year with its new string ensemble of leading players, both past and present. With cellist Julian Lloyd Webber as director and soloist, its Fringe debut also features…

Zoe Strachan on The Lady from the Sea - interview

The playwright is collaborating with Craig Armstrong on the production for Scottish Opera

Five years ago, Scottish Opera embarked on a brave new venture called Five:15. The plan was to put together contemporary Scottish writers and composers and commission them to come up with five new 15 minute long operas. Altogether, 15 short operas were…

Fork - Electro Vocal Circus

PVC-clad a capella group covering pop classics

The four-piece a cappella group from Finland return. Fork’s look and repertoire is much more glam rock than Glee, with one member being labelled as the ‘Legolas from hell’. They have an ever so slightly intimidating presence, but this only adds to their…

Virginia Gay - Dirty, Pretty Songs

Husky voiced soap star lacks plot but brings cabaret showtunes instead

As Virginia Gay’s cabaret commences it’s easy to get the jist: she prowls through the audience, belts out a shiny tune and ends up writhing atop her band’s grand piano. The Australian actress recounts a self-deprecating ‘back story’, referencing a…

Temper Temper: The Pain of Desire

Weimar rock ‘n’ roll from an unforgettable performer

The edges between live concert and theatrical performance bleed together in this full band show instigated by creative director Wendy Bevan. It begins as we await outside, the sound of piano flourishes being prepared echoing through the…

Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman bring joint live show to Edinburgh Fringe

Singing and reading from musical and literary couple

‘Amanda taught Neil to love the festival,’ speaks the Palmer/Gaiman marital unimind (in fact hallowed fantasy author Gaiman emailing on behalf of himself and his ex-Dresden Doll and Fringe mainstay spouse). ‘He used to come to Edinburgh and do the book…

Interview: Archie Shepp - Edinburgh date for avant-garde firebrand

The legendary sax-man talks bagpipes, gospel and reggae before his Summerhall show

Archie Shepp came to prominence in the mid-1960s as a leading light of the black avant-garde, playing with Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon and Don Cherry, among others. John Coltrane sponsored Shepp's contract with Impulse! records and invited him to play on…

Top 5 music shows for kids at Fringe 2012

Featuring The BIG Sing-a-long, Flamenco for Kids, Sesame Street and Music Bugs

The BIG Sing-a-long! Back for their third Fringe running, the BIG Project’s Children’s Choir invite you to join in with chart hits and musical mash-ups. St Mark’s artSpace, 228 1155, 4 Aug, 2pm, £6 (£4–£5). Flamenco for Kids Warm up your hands…

2012 Edinburgh Festival of Politics highlights

Talks on George Wyllie, the music industry, Canongate and Scotland's wood cabins

Singin’ I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim. The difficulties of overcoming ignorance associated with the issue of sectarianism in Scotland were perfectly highlighted last season when one football radio pundit accused Des Dillon’s play of actually promoting…

Twenty top shows at the 2012 Edinburgh Festivals

Highlights from the Fringe, Book and International Festivals

Having scanned the 23.6m shows, exhibitions and events across the festival in late July, August and early September, we pluck out the ones that simply cannot be missed

BUG Hosted by Adam Buxton

Entertaining but unchallenging music video presentation

The usually BFI-based BUG organisation’s remit is to celebrate ‘global creativity in music video’, and in that respect, this show succeeds admirably. Videos from acts as diverse as US indie-rockers Manchester Orchestra, electro artists The Chase and…