Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 133

Interestingly, I don’t think that ages of anxiety are times of enormous
innovations. It’s not that we want the absolute familiar, but we seem to want
reassurance, then as now.
Structure is important at the moment. Really great song writing is important
at the moment and beauty, which was really a dirty word for a long time, is
important. We also return to the big narratives when we’re anxious, when
we’re angry and when we’re confused.
Maybe that was the thing back in ����, at the founding of the Edinburgh
International Festival, when they were looking for the North Star that would
take them back to civilization. When we’re in a state of confusion, we need
to ground ourselves in something, whether it’s the Greeks or whether it’s
the great narrators of opera, or pieces of affirming music that we adore.
I think it would be overstating it to say you can influence the mood of the
time with a festival programme. I think you can draw attention to things. The
sheer scale, resources, and capacity of our platform means you can choose
to do something that can impact on the ecology of things. But I’m not sure
about the degree to which a festival that is as broad a church as ours can
really influence the socio-political environment.
Scan here for a video of Fergus Linehan
URL: http://bit.ly/2ug5H4B
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