US theme brings Festival to rousing finale

A FLAVOUR of the Wild West, mom's apple pie and the Stars and Stripes.

That is what is promised on Sunday, when exploding fireworks will dance in the night sky above the Castle as the overture from Leonard Bernstein's Candide is played below, bringing the 2007 Edinburgh International Festival to a close, and new artistic director Jonathan Mills' first programme full circle.

Under the baton of American-born Clark Rundell, head of conducting and director of contemporary music at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will perform an exciting programme of music from across the pond as the annual, choreographed firework display unfolds against the backdrop of Edinburgh's historic castle.

The all-American repertoire of this year's Fireworks Concert continues with another overture, from George Gershwin's Strike Up The Band, which is followed by Samuel Barber's soaring Adagio for strings Op 11, the more obscure Charles Ives' Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut from Three Places In New England.

Completing the programme is Aaron Copland's Buckaroo Holiday from Rodeo and a surprise encore, which programmers guarantee will leave the crowds with a smile on their faces.

As the members of the SCO, which was formed in 1974 with a commitment to serve the Scottish community, take their places at the Ross Bandstand, the task of ensuring that the pyrotechnic ballet above their heads reflects what they are playing falls, as ever, to Wilf Scott and Keith Webb.

"We work together on the display, although Keith took the Adagio this year as he did the last time we did it. It's a question of creating a mood with a piece of music like that, trying to get fireworks to do, in a way, what lighting would do," explains Scott, before talking through some of the more complicated pieces in this year's programme.

"We have the colour themes of the red, white and blue because of the American theme. But some of it, I think in the Three Places In New England, Putnam Camp, it's total anarchy. It's like having two orchestras and one's playing a theme and the other one's playing what it likes, and trying to get out of the Hessian sack they're both stuck in.

"We hope that we can reflect that by the fact that we've dropped the symmetry. A lot of the time, if you look at the plans, they're all based on symmetry, but in this one we've gone against the grain by not being symmetric.

"So one side of the Castle will be firing 3in shells, the other side will be firing 4in shells and there might be a roman candle going up in the middle.

"It's just playing with the tension in the music - when it jerks it'll be just one firework coming from the hospital end of the Castle.

"When it goes again, a second later, another firework will come from the Argyll Tower and another one from the western defences, so it's flying around all over the Castle trying to recreate this bumpy ride that you get from the New England piece."

Webb adds, "We do try to follow the tempo and the feel of it and try to match material to that. As Wilf says, some of the music is sort of bumpy and sort of humorous and we try to put bumpy and humorous fireworks in.

"By mixing and matching lots of different things, hopefully we can achieve that. When it goes quiet, we go quiet. There are various sections in the music where it's very regimental, so we try to mimic that by using very, very straight lines of vertical colour using specific Roman candles."

However, there is nothing regimented about the concert's finale, Copland's Buckaroo Holiday, from Rodeo.

"The Buckaroo Holiday, we had worked out as a drunken cowboy. We had this story going in our heads about 'this is the bit where he gets thrown out of the saloon' and stuff like that.

"Fireworks can be funny as well as serious as well as moody and I think what we've tried to do in some of these strange pieces of music is to be a bit funny, we've tried to be a bit eccentric," reflects Scott.

"It's very much a gut thing, I think. I started off as an artist, not as a firework person and I think you've got this thing to paint, this picture to paint."

With a laugh, Webb agrees, "It's just that you have the biggest palate in the world, you've got the sky with which to play."

All eyes will be raised to see Scott and Webb's celestial art light up the heavens. However, wherever you watch from - be it the city centre or the family viewing area at Inverleith Park, where a large screen and live link to the orchestra in the Ross Bandstand will carry the event live - to experience the full atmosphere of the concert, tune into Forth One or Forth 2, as both stations will broadcast the concert live.

And this year, for the first time, the spectacular finale of the Edinburgh International Festival will be venturing into cyber-space. After the display, relive the event by clicking onto www.eif.co.uk/bankof scotlandfireworksconcert for dramatic images and footage from the event.

• The Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert, Princes Street Gardens, Sunday, 9pm

FLASH BANG

The 2006 Fireworks Concert attracted more than 250,000 people to various vantage points throughout the city.

Bank of Scotland has sponsored the Fireworks Concert since 1995 and has supported the Edinburgh International Festival since its inception in 1947.

Wilf Scott and Keith Webb, international fireworks artists, are again designing the pyrotechnic display.

It takes the team of 15 six days to lay out all the fireworks including the famous waterfall.

The Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert is the biggest event of its kind in Europe with four tonnes of explosives and over 100,000 fireworks set off from the Castle.

There will be 500 Roman Candles; each candle has up to ten shots and 1.5 tonnes of multi- shot batteries will be used - each one has between 100 and 600 shots. The shells used will include: 800 3in shells; 700 4inch shells; 500 5inch shells and 176 6inch shells.