Sacred Arts Festival Programme Announced

Wednesday April 2 2025

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Edinburgh, the Most Rev Leo Cushley, Edinburgh City Organist Dr John Kitchen, author Ian Bradley and former Edinburgh Makar Christine De Luca are all on the programme for this year’s Edinburgh Festival of the Sacred Arts.

Taking place between August 10-16, this will be the sixth edition of the festival run by the Edinburgh Sacred Arts Foundation. The seventeen events include worship, performances of music and poetry, exhibitions, guided tours and a film screening.

Dr Williams will be the guest preacher at the festival’s opening Sung Eucharist in St John’s Episcopal Church, while Archbishop Cushley will be the guest homilist at the closing service, in St Michael and All Saints Church.

The Robin Chapel Choir will perform a selection of choral works from the aftermath of World War 2, while New Zealand tenor Sam Madden and pianist Will Sims, who appeared at last year’s festival, will return with a recital of contemporary sacred songs.

Ian Bradley will speak on ‘The Spiritual Resonances of Musical Theatre’, with songs from shows such as The Sound of Music, South Pacific, Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables performed by the Schola Cantorum of St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral.

The 375th anniversary of the Scottish Metrical Psalter will be celebrated  by an event including four newly-commissioned settings of the psalms. A separate event will tell the story of the Scottish Psalter through a multi-media presentation.

Dr Kitchen will direct the Choir of Old Saint Paul’s in ‘So Great a Cloud of Witnesses – Music and Poetry Celebrating the Saints and Martyrs’.

There will also be an exhibition by artist Carol Marples of the Soul Marks Trust, who will lead three workshops; and one of the church vestments, hangings and linens in Old Saint Paul’s Church; and the chance to explore the Magdalen Reformation Chapel, with live Scottish metrical psalm singing.

The highly successful competition for young composers of sacred music, established in 2024 will be repeated, along with a new competition for young poets of religious poetry. The three prize-winning poems will be announced, and read, at a poetry event with Robert Crawford and Christine De Luca; while the prizewinning compositions will be performed at a recital in Canongate Kirk.

Full details of all events and competitions are available on the festival website.

The opening and closing services and exhibitions are free. Tickets for the other events go on sale from Friday April 4, from the Fringe Box Office and Eventbrite.

Life and Work is the magazine of the Church of Scotland. April issue out now.

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