Music gushed out from the Usher Hall, spilling over, as if the venue wasn’t large enough to contain the exuberance of this performance. Before and after the show, musicians played on the steps outside as the lucky ticket holders and those not so fortunate swayed to the hypnotic rhythms of All Rise.
The hall was packed, every seat filled. From an amateur violinist who came up especially from Fife to my left, to the older woman accompanied by her grandson in front, to the pouting uber-glamorous influencer glittering in her silver gown to my right, the audience was kept captivated until the last notes played and Wynton Marsalis was led forward by the conductor, James Gaffigan, to take his bows in front of a delighted audience.
The Edinburgh International Festival, under the guidance of Director Nicola Benedetti, united Marsalis and his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with over 200 performers on stage, including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus and the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers. Despite the complexity of the composition, the enthusiasm and joy of the musicians and conductor were evident and contagious.
It is certainly a groundbreaking piece. Ambitious in its scope, it weaves together myriad genres of music in 12 movements – representing 12-bar blues – tracing the complexities of the human journey through life.
At times melodious and at others cacophonous, it is consistently surprising and powerful. It takes us from birth, to play and self-discovery, through pain and sacrifice, and ultimately to maturity and an acceptance of oneself – an acceptance that is neither self-sacrificing nor resigned, but instead filled with a profound sense of self-knowledge, brimming with pleasure and a true sense of liberty.
An undercurrent of gospel runs throughout, ebbing and flowing from beginning to end. Religious references are abundant and their meanings are deliberately contrasting: at one moment, boldly confronting the role of religion in the enslavement of people; at another, lifting religion as a vehicle to express the profound spirituality and love it can also embody.
Although All Rise is sometimes criticised for its messy dissonance and seemingly chaotic patchwork of melodies, it is precisely through this disorder that beauty emerges. As with life, with the many-hued threads and varied patterns often appearing conflicting and discordant yet forming its rich tapestry, so in this composition, each movement plays a critical and unique role in its creation.
By choosing this transformative masterpiece as the Festival’s leitmotif in 2026, All Rise is elevated to an anthem for a global progressive movement urging people to unite and rise up together for a greater global good.
Like Beethoven’s Eroica, which was also composed at a time of intense political turmoil and conceived as a vision for freedom, All Rise combines unprecedented harmonic dissonance with extraordinary dramatic and narrative power. In these troubled times, one can only hope that Marsalis’s vision will inspire us all to rise in support and solidarity with one another.
