It's better to taste the new harvest wine with music
AUSTRIA
"Haydn's Path", October, Eisenstadt. Due to the fact that 2009 has been declared the Year of Haydn by UNESCO, wonderful excursions dedicated to his work and life are held every Friday in the hometown of the famous composer, Eisenstadt. The excursions will start from Haydn's mausoleum in Bergkirche, go through the composer's house, the vineyard in the park of the local castle, and end in the garden of Aloisia Haydn, the composer's wife. The cost of the excursion for adults is €9.5, for children from 6 years old – €4.5. //www.eisenstadt.at
Musica sacra Festival, September 12 – October 24, St. Pölten, Lilienfeld, Herzogenburg. In September, two concerts have already taken place within the festival, featuring Haydn's "Nelson Mass" and works by Handel, Mendelssohn, and Schmidt. On October 10, at the Cathedral Church of St. Pölten, a concert "Improvvisata" by young composer Klaus Lang will take place, performing on the organ both his own works and compositions by the 16th-century Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi. On October 17, in Lilienfeld, in the dormitory of a monastery founded at the beginning of the 13th century, the Austrian ensemble Accentus will present 17th-century Baroque Spanish music to the public, and on October 24 in Herzogenburg, Roberta Invernizzi and Anna Simboli, accompanied by the ensemble Concerto Italiano, will perform motets by Monteverdi and Coprario. //www.festival-musica-sacra.at
BELGIUM
15th Nature Film Festival, October 17-25, Namur. Alongside film screenings by professionals and amateurs, a photo contest is held under the festival's auspices. Festival participants are divided into categories: mammals, birds, other animals, plants, and landscape. Guests have a chance to award a favorite author with the Audience Award. A pass for all film screenings, except the awards ceremony, costs €15; entrance to the awards ceremony and the gala evening dedicated to it is also €15. The ticket price for an adult for one screening is €5, for students – €4, children are admitted free. //www.festivalnaturenamur.be
UNITED KINGDOM
Arts Festival, October 17-31, Canterbury. This year, the Canterbury Arts Festival traditionally presents a mix program of various genres and directions: music (from classical to folk), theater, film, literature, dance. Participants of the music program will include cellist Tasmin Little, the Polish group Karbido with their acclaimed musical performance "Table," in which they extract sounds from furniture, the choir The Sixteen performing Renaissance music, comedians Spymonkey, the band The Epstein, as well as cellist Guy Johnston together with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra. Festival events also include a documentary about pre-war Canterbury with historical commentary, an exhibition at Canterbury Cathedral dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the coronation of Henry VIII, city tours telling about the times of Augustine of Canterbury, the premiere of the culinary film "Julie & Julia" starring Meryl Streep, and other delights. //www.canterburyfestival.co.uk
International Conker Championship. October 3, Oundle, Northamptonshire. Near the town of Oundle, another tournament for the strongest conker will take place. To test the strength of their weapon, opponents hang a conker on a string and strike it against the opponent's conker. The one whose conker remains intact wins.
Local residents believe that originally this competition involved snail shells or hazelnuts, but in the 20th century horse chestnuts began to be used. Admission for spectators costs £4. The festival starts at 10:30 and will be accompanied by a fair, a free juggling workshop, face painting, concerts, dances and other fun. By 3:00 PM the winners will be known, who will receive modest prizes from the organizers; all other money collected will go to charity. //www.worldconkerchampionships.com
HUNGARY
Autumn Harvest and Wine Festival, October 2-4, Tokaj. The festival program includes fashion shows, a children's party, a goulash cooking competition, a football match, a fair with stilt walkers, Hungarian folk songs, concerts by LGT-Band, Hollo Band, Vidia Band and other musicians, a visit to Tokaj Castle, a festive procession accompanied by wine tastings, local dishes, and a crafts fair. //www.tokaj.hu
GERMANY
Onion Fair, October 9-11, Weimar. This year, Weimar will host the 356th Onion Fair. According to the people of Weimar themselves, it is the oldest folk festival in Thuringia. The event first took place in 1653, when the city had only 5,000 inhabitants. The fair had room not only for onions but also for various spices, garlic, marjoram, and other local agricultural products. The fair was extremely popular among the local population. It is known that Goethe himself bought onions at this fair and then kept them on his desk because he believed that inhaling the onion smell promoted health.
In the 19th century, the fair became a center for onion sales throughout central Germany, and from 1861 it became a three-day event. During the division of Germany into FRG and GDR, when a love for statistics flourished, the organizers calculated that the fair was visited by up to 120,000 people, up to 32,000 onion braids were sold per day, and once, in 1970, as much as 100 tons of onions were sold. //www.weimar.de
SPAIN
Festival of electronic music Experimentalclub, 2-4 October, Madrid. This year's main theme of the festival will be the illustrative nature of music and its combination with visual arts – primarily with cinema as soundtracks. Two workshops will be dedicated to this, as well as the video exhibition Resonancias Magneticas. The festival program includes Pram, Pan.American, Wolf Eyes, Fuck Buttons, Zombie Zombie, Egyptian Mahmoud Refaat and others. Spanish composer Miguel Marín, known as Arbol, in collaboration with Finnish artist Solu, now living in Barcelona, will present a mystical cinema performance with the Finnish name Kaamos to the public. //www.experimentaclub.com
ITALY
Rome Film Festival, 15-23 October. The Rome Film Festival is very young: this year it is held only for the fourth time. The competition program includes 12 films, and 6 more films will be shown out of competition. The jury is chaired by none other than Miloš Forman himself. In the non-competition program, it is worth noting retrospective screenings of works by two Italian directors – Luigi Zampa and Sergio Leone. Also, viewers will be treated to the premiere of Paulo Coelho's film based on his book "The Witch of Portobello", and at the closing of the festival, Nora Ephron's new film "Julie & Julia" with Meryl Streep in the lead role will be shown. Festival winners will be awarded gold or silver statuettes of Marcus Aurelius. Ticket prices for screenings – from €3. //www.romacinemafest.org
FRANCE
Jazz Pulsations, 6-17 October, Nancy. This year's festival program includes the trio The Puppini Sisters, imitating female groups of the 40s, Patrick Kunka Quartet, The Spirits of New Orleans, singing real gospel, Renza-Bo Quintet, Marc-André Léger, Pierre Lapointe, Caity Eastwood, The Lost Fingers, Kaktus Groove Band. Outside the musical program, an exhibition by photographer Eric Andersson featuring portraits of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Griffin and Wes Montgomery is interesting. Price of a pass for all festival concerts – €60. //www.nancyjazzpulsations.com
CZECH REPUBLIC
Music festival "Moravian Autumn", 2-16 October, Brno. The current festival is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the death of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů. Since several well-known musical anniversaries are celebrated this year, the program also includes Joseph Haydn, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Francis Poulenc. In addition, the festival will feature music by Martinů's students, for example, Jan Novák, and other contemporary composers. //www.mhf-brno.cz
Fyodor VINTER-TARASEVICH.
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