# Artists have the power to stand up for truth, says Edinburgh festival director

Performers can fight cynicism in age of Trump, says Nicola Benedetti as she announces 2025 programme

**Contributor:** Severin Carrell, Scotland editor  
**Date:** Thu 13 Mar 2025 08.00 EDT  
**Last modified:** Thu 13 Mar 2025 09.11 EDT

Musicians and artists should challenge disinformation and cynicism in global politics by standing up for fundamental truths, the violinist Nicola Benedetti has said.

**Benedetti, the director of the  international festival, said the arts played an essential role during periods of turmoil by showing the best of human achievement.**

Speaking after the launch, Benedetti acknowledged she was referring to the crises that have erupted since Donald Trump resumed the US presidency. “There’s no point downplaying the presence of the United States . Everyone is watching and there are huge tectonic shifts and enormous questions facing leadership and political leadership at the moment,” she said.

“But we have an advantage with the arts in that we can speak that language of allegory. We can speak to both pertinent and timeless issues at once,  now is the time to double down on exactly that.”

The opening event features a marathon eight-hour performance at the Usher Hall of Sir John Tavener’s religious song cycle The Veil of the Temple, which Benedetti said spoke to the role religious belief played in illuminating universal truths.

**Figures in Extinction**

Nederlands Dans Theater explores humanity’s destructive impact on the world through soundscapes, dialogue and dance.

**Make it happen**

Brian Cox plays the ghost of Adam Smith in a satire about Royal Bank of Scotland’s role in the 2008 banking crisis, in a show by National Theatre of  and Dundee Rep.

**The Veil of the Temple**

Sir John Tavener’s eight-hour choral work involves 250 singers and features the Monteverdi choir, the National Youth Orchestra and .

**Mary Queen of Scots**

This Scottish Ballet premiere from the choreographer Sophie Laplane fuses a punk aesthetic with renaissance power politics in a story about the conflict between Mary and Queen Elizabeth I.

**Orpheus and Eurydice**

Australian opera companies along with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the modern circus company Circa present an acrobatic “ancient tale of love, lust and loss”.

This year’s festival would be smaller than previous years, Benedetti said, because of funding cuts, with contemporary music and opera pared back.

Speaking in January, Benedetti expressed alarm about the  in government and philanthropic funding. But she said a subsequent award to the festival of £11.75m over the next three years, part of a £200m nationwide funding package from Creative Scotland, was “pivotal”.

She said she hoped three-year funding pledges would be honoured. “You have to proceed with a level of confidence and plan ambitiously, but you also hope for a level of non-partisan integrity around promises made,” she said.

The Edinburgh international festival runs from 1 to 25 August and tickets go on general sale on 27 March via .
```