Five stars to light up the Festival

As the great Peter Brook makes clear in his interview on these pages, artistic creation is a team sport, and the myth of the lone genius is indeed a myth. Even the most reclusive talents will inevitably draw a certain amount of inspiration from the work of others, and even the most brilliant soloists will at some point have benefitted from the advice of a wise teacher.

None of this makes the creative processes of successful artists any less fascinating, however, and in this year’s Edinburgh International Festival preview supplement we have chosen to focus on five individuals whose unique creative visions promise to light up the city’s stages in the coming weeks.

In her interview with David Kettle on pages 4-5, mezzo soprano Michèle Losier explains how she made the leap to singing a role she thought she would never be able to sing, not by striving for perfection, as the old cliché goes, but rather by embracing her flaws and realising that sometimes “flaws can even become qualities.” Similarly, in her interview with Ken Walton on pages 8-9 the composer Thea Musgrave reveals how she took the contents of a stress-induced dream she’d had, in which she lost control of an orchestra she was trying to conduct, and used it as the inspiration for a bold new piece of music.

Meanwhile, on pages 6-7 dance legend Akram Khan talks to Kelly Apter about his decision to make the leap from dancer to choreographer, and on pages 10-11 Karine Polwart tells Fiona Shepherd how she went about the apparently impossible task of selecting music for her Scottish Songbook concert. We hope you enjoy these glimpses into five remarkable minds.

Roger Cox, Arts Editor