The Salzburg Festival (Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In modern time there is also an annual Salzburg Easter Festival held by the same organization.


The 2009 Salzburg Festival will be opened with a ceremony at the Felsenreitschule on Saturday, July 25, at 11:00 am. The ceremony will be broadcast live from 11:00 onwards until about 1:00 pm on ORF2 and 3sat. Once again, there will be a Party for Everyman to open the Festival. Salzburg’s old town will be turned into one great stage, where more than 100 concerts, events and exhibitions take place without admission. After a welcome from Festival President Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler, the Adagio from Joseph Haydn’s Symphony in D-Minor Hob. I:26 Lamentatione, played by the Mozarteum Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Ivor Bolton, and an address by Landeshauptfrau Mag. Gabi Burgstaller, the Federal Minister for Education, Arts and Culture, Dr. Claudia Schmied, will speak. After the chorus “He saw the lovely youth” from George Frederick Handel’s oratorio Theodora, performed by the Salzburg Bach Chorus, the Federal President of Austria, Dr. Heinz Fischer, will open the Festival. This will be followed by the keynote address delivered by Daniel Kehlmann. The ceremony will end with a composition for three percussionists by Iannis Xenakis entitled Okho, performed by Martin Grubinger, Rainer Furthner and Leonhard Schmidinger.
Daniel Kehlmann has managed to establish himself at the very top of contemporary literature with his precisely balanced and brilliantly written novels. Until this year, his connection with Salzburg and the Festival was through a former Salzburg engagement of his father, director Michael Kehlmann, who directed a Festival production in the exact year his son – this year’s keynote speaker – was born.


http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/