Advertisement
Friday, 21 November 2008



Ohrid Summer Festival to Bring International Performers to Macedonia



BalkanTravellers.com   

3 June 2008 | The renowned opera singer Jessye Norman and a score of other performers and artists will take part in this summer’s edition of the Ohrid Summer Festival, which will take place between July 12 and August 20 in the town of Ohrid in southwestern Macedonia.

Jessye Norman, who is considered to be the world’s best soprano, will open the 48th edition of the festival in the Antique Theatre on July 12. Norman, a four-time Grammy winner, will be accompanied by the Macedonian Opera and Ballet Orchestra during her performance.

Around 50 classical music concerts and theatrical performances and several art exhibitions fill the festival’s programme, with attendance by guests from around Macedonia, the region and the whole world. Some highlights include the performances of Sarah Chang, one of classical music's most captivating and gifted violinist, renowned cellist Nataly Gutman, Macedonian opera singers Ana Kontradenko and Boris Trajanov, and the Bulgarian Sfumato theatre’s play Psychosis 4.48 after Sarah Kane.

The festival’s full programme, which is currently being completed, can be seen
here in English.

Read more about Macedonia from BalkanTravellers.com
Use BalkanTravellers.com's tips to organize your trip to Macedonia


 

Epicure


Macedonia
Macedonian Wine to Comply with EU Standards

Macedonia has started to make and analyse wine in line with European standards.
Full Story



Curiosity Chest


Macedonia
Macedonia: Pollution Tourism

Macedonia’s latest tourist attraction is a holiday in a polluted environment, national media reported on November 14, although evidence suggests the tourist offer is in fact fake.
Full Story



Useful Reads


Greece
Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (2004) | By Patrick Leigh Fermor

2008 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, considered one of the most important travelogues of the twentieth century by many critics. Although the book is now often described as a ‘companion text’ to the author’s later account of travels in Northern Greece, Roumeli (1966), the author reveals that he originally meant it to be ‘a single chapter among many’ that would cumulatively encompass his long travels and experience throughout Greek lands.
Full Story



Music


Macedonia
Ethno-Jazz: Vlatko Stefanovski

The two modern forms of Balkan folk music - pop folk and ethno-jazz - differ as a hand-rolled cigarette and an expensive cigar.
Full Story







Annoyances in the Balkans


Balkans
Relentless Homophobia Rages in the Balkans

Be IN-tolerant! Be normal!, appeals a poster (pictured above) that recently flooded the streets of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.

As the first gay pride parade in Bulgaria is about to take place, amid strong opposition by nationalistic organisations and a large part of society, the high levels of persistent homophobia in the country and the Full Story


Insiders' Advice


If the relentless homophobia is already that bad, what's the attitude in general towards HIV/AIDS, given the rather worrying HIV-prevalence in Eastern Europe and Russia?
Full Story



Is it easy to drive in the Balkans? Depends. If you are looking for adrenalin, this is a cheap way to get it. Expats say the best tactics is not to get annoyed.
Full Story



How to pick the right time to go? Winter is beautiful in the high mountains, the problem is, it can be so cold! Then again, who cares how cold it is - the locals have a cheap cure: heavy red wine. Sometimes warmed up.
Full Story



You can't trust local maps. Nor some international travel guides. One of them, for instance, says, that Neretva River in Bosnia and Herzegovina flows FROM the Adriatic towards the inland of the Balkans, never reaching the sea. OK, how about the Neretva delta and channel in Croatia?
Full Story



The Big Book of Travelling


United States
The Rise of Burlesque in New York: Tassels and the City

Burlesque – the more audacious relative of commedia dell'arte, is in revival. A reality in “upside down style”, this creative, witty and softer version of striptease is back on stage, following an absence of nearly 80 years. In New York, Anjeza Bojku scoped out several burlesqee venues for BalkanTravellers.com. Full Story

Thailand
A Short Guide to the Peculiarities of Thai Food