Ljubljana Festival 2011

With the month of July comes the beginning of the central festival in Ljubljana which offers visitors a number of events over two months. In addition to concerts, the programme of the Ljubljana Festival includes exhibitions and ballets, as well as theatre and folklore presentations.
Altogether almost forty events, featuring artists of international renown, will enliven the long festival summer through september 7. Among the highlights, Al di Meola will present his New World Symphony, while the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by En Shao and feature pianist Leonel Morales. The celebrated troupe Béjart Ballet of Lausanne returns with three ballets: What Love Tells Me, The Firebird and Boléro. The Filarmonica della Scala Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Harding will also perform, and the Chinese Philharmonic Orchestra Hangzhou will make its first appearance before local audiences. From Broadway and the West End comes the musical Hair, and from St. Petersburg the celebrated choreographer Boris Eifman arrives with the ballets Onegin and Don Quixote. Also scheduled to take place in the scope of the Ljubljana Festival is the mini-festival Hommage á Liszt, which commemorates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt. Also, the Slovenian Octet will celebrate their 60th anniversary with a special concert. The Lithuanian State Opera will close the Ljubljana Festival with an evening of opera arias and performances of Otello and La Juive.

More complete programme information can be found on the Ljubljana Festival’s website