Healing Arts Scotland Opening Celebration

The Healing Arts Scotland opening celebration took place outside the Scottish Parliament at 4pm on Monday 19 August as part of Edinburgh International Festival. Featuring over 250 performers and participants from across Scotland in an energetic celebration of music and dance, it was an event that captured the spirit and healing power of coming together through the performing arts.

Alongside a Scottish Ballet community cast, 200 musicians from across Scotland were assembled by Edinburgh International Festival in a joyful showcase of mass music-making, with performers from the National Youth Pipe Band, Oi Musica, TRYST and Samba Ya Bamba. Scottish Ballet presented a specially commissioned dance piece featuring Scottish Ballet’s Youth Exchange company, NHS staff, Dance for Parkinson’s Scotland participants and Dance Base's PRIME Elders Dance Company. The work was performed to ‘Mackay’s Memoirs’ by the late Scottish Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett, a landmark work by the GRIT Orchestra, which was originally commissioned for the opening of the Scottish Parliament building in 1999. This performance marked its 25th anniversary and was performed with live musicians from piping supergroup TRYST and the National Youth Pipe Band, under the musical guidance of GRIT Orchestra’s Greg Lawson.