A free opening show on Castle Rock backed by music from rockers Mogwai, a nightly Alan Cumming cabaret, and a series of rock, hip hop and electronica concerts mark this year's Edinburgh International Festival programme.

In his second year as director, Fergus Linehan has again emphasised in his festival the sounds of modern cutting edge music - from bands such as Young Fathers, Sigur Ros, Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Mogwai, a selection fo modern Scottish music, as well as the traditional productions of opera, dance and classical music.

The free opening event, this year ticketed, is Deep Time, an animated public artwork displayed on the side of the Edinburgh Castle rock, by 59 Productions, backed with a collection of music from Scottish rock band Mogwai.

There will be concerts from the acclaimed, award-winning Edinburgh band Young Fathers, the singer Anohni who was previously known as Antony Hegarty of the band Antony and the Johnsons, Lau’s Martin Green working with collaborators from Portishead, The Unthanks and Mogwai in world premiere of Flit, Greg Lawson’s reworking of Martyn Bennett’s Grit, and the Glasgow producer Hudson Mohawk working with Anonhi and US artist Oneohtrix Point Never.

The festival will see the world premiere of Wind Resistance from Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart, documentary Where You’re Meant To Be with live performance from Aidan Moffat, the folk, jazz and classical Indian fusion of Yorkston/Thorne/Khan, and a special performance from singer songwriter Emma Pollock.

The programme is another step in the broad direction Mr Linehan wants to take the festival, he said, which also involves expanding both its geographical reach in Edinburgh and its use of digital technology.

Other highlights in an eclectic programme for the festival, which runs from August 5 to August 29, include the Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, directed by Black Watch director John Tiffany, three productions marking the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and a nightly house show at The Hub, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, featuring the Scottish star of stage and screen.

Cumming also wants to run a club every night after his show, which will feature songs by Kurt Weill and Noël Coward, Stephen Sondheim andRufus Wainwright, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, among others.

Leading orchestras at the festival include the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Russian National Orchestra, with major classical artists including Daniil Trifonov, Andras Schiff, Maxim Vengerov and Mikhail Pletnev, Anja Kampe, Karen Cargill, Herbert Blomstedt, Stuart Skelton and Cecilia Bartoli.

Linehan said he "hoped" contemporary music was now embedded in the programme.

"I think it is normalised now, but we might find it is still seen as a big deal," he said.

"I think in popular music you do have to apply personal taste a lot - but there are definitely artists who are not following a set career, and with each chapter are really looking to say something new.

"This year it was it was clarified for me because we wanted to highlight Scottish music, and that gave us to lines within which to draw.

"There's a list which we could all write of artists in popular music who are doing really interesting things, not purely for the purposes of progressing a commercial career - we probably all have the same list, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Bjork and so on.

"In a sense, a bit of that becomes self-defining and the other bit is what becomes interesting - so to try and use the same criteria as theatre or dance [when choosing acts], and not let contemporary music run off as a thing of its own within the programme."

The opening event will take place at 10.30pm on August 7.

It will tell the tale of 350m years of Edinburgh history in 15 minutes, as well as pay tribute to the Enlightenment thinker James Hutton, the Edinburgh scientist and "father of modern geology".

Although its main viewing area will be ticketed, Mr Linehan said many more people will be able to view the graphics and hear the music.

Last year's opening event - the first of its kind - the Harmonium Project, drew 20,000 people.

"It's a much bigger site from the publics point of view, and it will be visible from all sorts of buildings, a lot that pop up behind the Usher Hall, so anyone there and back, and we will put it out [the music] on an FM frequency," he said.

"I'm saddened in a way we will have to ticket it, but we are working out a mechanism so people can pick them up on the day - certainly we will be printing 10-20,000 tickets."

2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.

Three theatre companies present his work at the festival - theatre maker Thomas Ostermeier returns to the International Festival with a reworking of Richard III, in a critically acclaimed production from Berlin’s Schaubühne Theatre; Cheek by Jowl and Moscow’s Pushkin Theatre make their International Festival debut with Measure for Measure, and director Dan Jemmett and his French-based company Eat a Crocodile bring Shake, a five-piece pop-theatre re-imagining of Twelfth Night.

The Bard’s influence also extends through the classical music programme with Shakespearean-inspired music from Rossini, Bellini, Verdi, Berlioz, Strauss and Tchaikovsky in concerts at the Usher and Queen’s halls.

There will be two events specially for young people and families with two contrasting dance pieces.

Chotto Desh is the first family show created by Akram Khan, reworked from his Olivier Award-winning autobiographical solo show Desh. Raw is a dance theatre work from Belgium’s Kabinet K, made by young people for young people.

A three-year residency at Castlebrae Community High School for the EIF is now in its second year.

This summer this includes a visit from Festival artist Alan Cumming, to talk about his life as a performer and actor to pupils and staff at Castlebrae.

Edinburgh’s summer festival season will again be brought to a conclusion on Monday 29 August with the Virgin Money Fireworks Concert.

Opera in 2016 sees staged productions from two of Europe’s leading arts festivals.

The Salzburg Festival’s internationally acclaimed staging of Bellini’s Norma stars world-renowned mezzo soprano Cecilia Bartoli in the title role and opens the Edinburgh International Festival programme.

Film and stage director Christophe Honoré brings a new production of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, in co-production with Opéra de Lille and Edinburgh International Festival, with the Cape Town Opera Chorus and Freiburger Barockorchester. Opera in concert at the Usher Hall features the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev with Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the first of four concert performances of the operas which make up the epic Ring Cycle, performed by a series of internationally acclaimed orchestras and singers over four Festival seasons from 2016 to 2019.

The Festival Insights strand this year include a special event commemorating the centenary of the Easter Rising and independence struggle in Ireland.

Before the Hudson and the Liffey explores the life of James Connolly, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising, who was from Edinburgh.

Tickets for all events at the Festival go on sale on 16 April at 10am, unless you are signed up for priority booking which opens on Wednesday 6 April at 10am.

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