Martyn Bennett's GRIT at the Edinburgh International Festival

An epic symphonic reimagining of the visionary GRIT, the final album by pioneering Scottish piper, fiddler and studio mixer Martyn Bennett, bringing together an 80-piece symphony orchestra, plus folk and jazz instrumentalists and singers, many deeply associated with Bennett himself.

Martyn Bennett caused a sensation with his controversial blending of Scottish traditional tunes and hard techno beats across five acclaimed studio albums. With GRIT, he spliced together archive recordings of emotive traditional Roma and Gaelic songs with throbbing samples and electronics. The album became a subversive landmark in new traditional Scottish music.

Bennett died from cancer in 2005, aged just 33. His close friend and musical collaborator, cross-genre classical violinist Greg Lawson, recast Bennett’s GRIT for full orchestra for the opening night of Celtic Connections in 2015, winning the Scots Trad Award for Event of the Year with his spectacular transformation. Lawson brings his stunning live vision of Martyn Bennett’s uncompromising GRIT to the 2016 Edinburgh International Festival.