Festival Maribor
Background
The roots of the Maribor Festival date back to 1963 when a festival of baroque music was organised by the Concert Management Maribor. In 1994 the festival was held with its concept and name changed to Glasbeni September ("Musical September"), an International Chamber Music Festival, under the artistic directorship of the pianist and professor Janko Šetinc. It has taken place every year in Maribor for the past 10 years.
Up to 2007 the festival programme was created by well-known chamber musician, Croatian horn player Radovan Vlatković. The festival was also distinguished for its unique approach to organisation as the invitations to participate in the festival were not given to chamber ensembles with their concert repertoire being pre-defined but rather, in the majority of cases, to top musicians – soloists – who then created ensembles in Maribor according to the programme selected by the artistic director. Since 2008 the festival has been run under the new name Maribor Festival and since 2010 it has been produced by the Slovene Philharmonic String Chamber Orchestra.
Programme
In the first years the festival was dedicated mainly to baroque music, but later it offered a distinguished range of chamber music from the Baroque to present times. In the last years concerts have also included symphonic music, a special evening dedicated to multimedia projects (combinations of music and photography or video), and different crossover genres (jazz and ethno music).
Venues
The Maribor Festival venues are the Union Hall, Rotovž Square, Knights Hall at Maribor Castle, Maribor Cathedral, Casina Hall and the Old Hall at the Slovene National Theatre Maribor, the Knights Hall at Ptuj Castle, and the Narodni dom Hall in Maribor. But concerts take place at concert halls and in churches and castles, not only in Maribor but also in some picturesque nearby cities (Ptuj, Slovenj Gradec).