Actor Charles Dance is to perform Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait at the Edinburgh International Festival.

The Game Of Thrones star will narrate the famed composer’s musical homage to former US President Abraham Lincoln alongside the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra who gave the world premiere of the work in 1942.

Written for narrator and orchestra, the work sets the speeches and writings of Lincoln against orchestral composition to create a musical portrait of the former president.

Buildings and Landmarks – Edinburgh
Abraham Lincoln Memorial in Old Calton Burial Ground, Edinburgh (PA)

In performing the work, Dance joins a stellar line-up of narrators including former US President Barack Obama and actors Paul Newman and Gregory Peck.

The concert at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on August 25 marks the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s debut performance at the Edinburgh International Festival in a programme including Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront and Brahms’s Symphony No 1 in C minor.

Dance will also join the orchestra at the BBC Proms on August 27 for a second performance.