The beautiful Austrian city of Salzburg steps into the limelight each January when it hosts a festival to honor its most famous son, the renowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who was born in Salzburg on the 27th of January 1756. Mozart’s many compositions of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, choral and other forms of music remain exceedingly popular until today and hence the Salzburg based International Mozarteum Foundation celebrates the maestro’s birthday every year by organizing a grand ten day long festival called Mozart Week which has developed over the last 50 years into one of the most important classical music festivals in Europe. This festival typically features more than 25 events which are spread over the ten day period of the festival. This year, Mozart week is scheduled to be held from Friday the 23rd of January until Sunday the 1st of February.
Archive for January, 2009
The city of Denver which is popularly known as the Mile High City (due to its official elevation of exactly a mile) every year in January hosts a fascinating horse and cattle show called the National Western Stock Show. However to dismiss this exciting WildWest extravaganza as merely a cattle trading affair would be grossly unfair as this exciting event which is actually regarded as one of Denver’s biggest attractions also features many thrilling horse and rodeo shows along with live stock exhibits and sales.
This year this wild west festival is to be held over a period of two weeks from the 10th of January until the 25th of January 2009 at the National Western complex in located downtown Denver, Colorado. This large complex which is spread over 600,000 square feet is ideal for the staging of the various events and contests of the festival which will as always feature a wide range of animals like show horses, llamas, buffalo, goats, and miniature and draft horses amongst others. read more
During the month of January each year, jazz festivals are held in several cities all over the globe. One such invigorating and uplifting annual jazz festival is the Panama Jazz Festival which is held at several venues all over the multi-ethnic Central American city of Panama. The Panama Jazz Festival which is celebrating its sixth anniversary this year brings together the world’s best jazz artists and students from all over the globe who come to Panama City to celebrate the mission statement of the festival which is to celebrate the world’s diversity through jazz.
This year the festival which is expected to attract more than 16000 attendees will be held from Monday the 12th of January through Saturday the 17th of January. The festival will feature a number of events which are to be held at historical venues like the Teatro Nacional and the Plaza de la Catedral which are located in Panama City’s Old Town popularly known as Casco Viejo. This jazz festival was conceptualized and created by Boston-based Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez who founded the festival in 2003 to celebrate Panama City, which is home to the great engineering marvel and facilitator of world trade, the Panama Canal. This festival aims to bridge the gap between different cultures through the common medium of jazz in the same fashion that the Panama Canal bridges the gap between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
The celebration of the festival of Christmas in Spain is quite different to what we see in countries like the US and the UK. For one Christmas in Spain has not been commercialized to the extent that it has in other countries and though Christmas lights and Christmas gear all feature in the celebration of the festival in Spain, they appear in stores only in the first week of December unlike in other countries where they are up and running in the first week of October itself.
Christmas trees do figure in the Spanish celebrations of Christmas but they are set up in conjunction with miniature nativity scenes called Belénes which depict the life in Bethlehem and always include figurines of Baby Jesus and his parents Joseph and Mary as well as figurines of the three Kings, Baltasar, Melchior and Gasper for these three Kings figure prominently the Spanish festival called the Feast of Epiphany which is celebrated on the 6th of January all over Spain.
