Red carpet treatment in Valletta

Reputed to be Europe's third-oldest working theatre -and the oldest in the Commonwealth of Nations- the Teatru Manoel on Valletta’s Old Theatre Street (Triq it-Teatru l-Antik) is now Malta's National Theatre and home to the National Orchestra of Malta. The new season in the small, 623-seat venue of lavish architectural majesty offers a variety of concerts and recitals, drama and dance performances, as well as musicals and pantomime shows, from October 23, 2009, to May 11, 2010.
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A jolly holiday season in Ljubljana

Forget London or Paris, Berlin or Madrid. The place to be this holiday season is Ljubljana, which has been off the track in the past but is now emerging as Europe’s best kept secret for wintertime holiday makers. The festive mood of the Slovenian capital will most certainly captivate you and the brilliantly decorated old city centre will be offering a range of different events intended for people of all ages and different tastes. So, put Ljubljana on top of your holiday destinations list this December and enjoy a lovely city in human scale.
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The art of diplomacy on canvas

We met in Bratislava a few weeks before the opening of his solo exhibition at the Slovak Presidential Palace in November 2009 and we “clicked” at first sight. At the time I hade no clue he was an artist, as he was introduced to me in his diplomatic hat. It just happens that Nikos Kanellos is a diplomat, currently serving in the Slovak capital as Greece’s ambassador to this landlocked central European country. Well, forget all stereotypes that come along with the title. Kanellos is not just another diplomat-turned-to-artist example, but the exact opposite: an artist who just happens to be a diplomat. How wonderful our world would be if all of them were like this guy, I thought.
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Ben Hur Live!

Fifty years after the first screening of the legendary film starring Charles Heston, Ben Hur dazzles the audiences once again with a breathtaking combination of light, sound, water, wind and pyrotechnic effects in a show performed in the round, like an ancient arena. Ben Hur Live, the major arena extravaganza continues its European tour with thirty-five shows in the UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, France, Spain and Belgium selling out fast. Check out when and where the show performs until the end of January 2010 and book in advance.
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The world of Zlatyu Boyadzhiev

Zlatyu Boyadjiev (1903-1976) is one of Bulgaria’s most celebrated artists. An exhibition of his paintings and drawings is currently on show in Sofia and this gives a unique opportunity to get to know the work of a great European painter of figure compositions, portraits and landscapes, who’s largely unknown outside his native Bulgaria. The exhibition opened on October 22 –the artist’s birthday- at Zenith Gallery (former Eibank Gallery) and runs until November 15.
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Images of the World

Swinging skirts, surrealistically distorted faces, monocle wearing men, aggressive war propaganda, richly illustrated tourist posters, introvert anti war missiles, humoristic advertising figures and a stencilled President Obama. The comprehensive international exhibition Pictures of the World: The Global Poster at Copenhagen’s Kunstindustrimuseet -The Danish Museum of Art & Design- with more than 300 posters designed by the most predominant poster designers in the World offers visual stories and a rare insight into the history and development of the poster through almost 200 years.
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Films for Slovenia’s gay community

Believe it or not, Europe's oldest gay and lesbian film festival takes place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, amidst an otherwise conservative society where the GLBT community largely lives in secret and is overlooked by the mainstream. Organized by Brane Mozetič, a renowned poet and gay activist, the Ljubljana Gay and Lesbian Film Festival continues its tradition of screening films from around the world that promote awareness and tolerance. This year’s 25th edition runs from November 28 to December 6 at the capital’s Slovenska kinoteka; a three-day screening programme (December 3-5) is also taking place in the cities of Celje and Koper.
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Performers' Platform Concert Series

The St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity in Valletta has a commitment to discovering, nurturing and promoting new talents and the Performers' Platform Concert Series gives up and coming musicians the opportunity to perform in a professional environment in the Music room at the centre to an appreciative audience. Lunchtime Wednesday Concerts feature an extraordinarily wide range of performers and repertoire, starting October 7 and running through May 2010.
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Athens’ best kept musical secret

There are few cultural venues in Athens whose history runs as deep into time as that of the Parnassos Literary Society. Counting 145 years of continuous presence in the cultural calendar of the Greek capital, the Society founded by the four sons of numismatist Pavlos Lambros -Michael, Spyridon, Konstantinos and Dionysios- is today one of the most active actors in many areas of arts and culture, namely classical music. The first three months of Parnassos’ 2009/2010 season of concerts running until the end of this year is a living proof.
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Contemporary dance, three in one

This November, Dancecyprus presents an exciting three-part production by choreographers Mauro de Candia, Itzik Galili and Carolina Constantinou, in three cities in Cyprus. The Triptych will be presented at Nicosia’s Pallas Theatre on November 10, at Limassol’s Rialto Theatre on November 12 and at the Markideio Theatre of Paphos on November 15.
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New York’s Met Opera in Riga

The New York Metropolitan Opera's experiment of merging film with live performance has created a new art form. The groundbreaking series of live, high-definition Saturday performance transmissions into movie theatres in more than 35 countries around the world has enjoyed box office success, reaching an estimated audience of more than 1.1 million viewers last year. In 2009-10, the Met offers its fourth season of international HD transmissions -this time with nine broadcasts. In Latvia, you can watch live Met’s thrilling, world-class opera at Riga’s Parex Plaza Cinema.
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Remembering Amália…

Amália Rodrigues left a mythical image never achieved by anyone. On the tenth anniversary of her death, a double exhibition in Lisbon explores the life, art and impact of the legendary Portuguese Fado diva, through documents, paintings, films, and other objects. Until the end of January 2010, the exhibition Amália, Coração Independente -titled after a famous verse of fado song Estranha forma de vida, which she wrote after music by Alfredo Marceneiro- will be on show at the Berardo Museum of Contemporary Art at the CCB and the nearby Museu da Electricidade in Belém.
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Lunchtime music breaks in Valletta

Take time out in the middle of your busy schedule or fit this in your leisurely holiday timetable. Valletta has lots o offer even when the hordes of summer tourists leave Malta. This October and November enjoy good classical music in the most charming environment of the beautiful church of St. Catherine of Italy in the heart of Valletta, where the fourth series of lunchtime concerts takes place, featuring an eclectic array of works and an exciting line up of performers.
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Changing Urban Visions

The cities we live in and the public spaces we have are of a vital importance and therefore they need to be the subject of a large-scale discussion. And this is exactly what Sofia Architecture Week aims at. Held from October 30 through November 5, the event subtitled Changing Urban Visions is the largest international architecture forum in Bulgaria. Besides an intense lecture weekend marathon, this year’s edition is hosting exhibitions, discussions and presentations with free access for all interested.
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New City Sounds

Held in Vilnius every year since 1991, Gaida is the biggest and most renowned festival of contemporary music in Lithuania and one of the most important forums of new music in Central and Eastern Europe. In the last ten years the festival has become a prestigious event not only for music lovers from Vilnius and Lithuania but also for foreign audiences attending the festival concerts in increasingly large numbers. This year, the festival’s 19th edition takes place from 24 to 31 of October in some of Vilnius’ most prestigious venues.
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WinterFest concerts in Riga

Every year since 1999, the Herman Braun Foundation in Latvia is organizing a series of concerts to celebrate preparations for the Winter season in November, Christmas in December, New Year and Russian Orthodox Christmas in January, and the regular anniversary of Foundation in February. The Winterfest held this year from November 14, 2009 to February 13, 2010, includes nine concerts of vocal, baroque, jazz and classical music that you should not miss.
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From Botticelli to Titian

More than 110 masterpieces of two centuries of Italian art, among them several paintings by the most famous Italian geniuses representing various schools and stylistic trends, are on display at the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts in an exhibition that should not be missed. The display titled From Botticelli to Titian, Masterpieces of Two Centuries of Italian Art, can be visited from October 28, 2009 to February 14, 2010.
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Paula Rego’s stories housed in Cascais

A brand new museum in Cascais, at the outskirts of the Lisbon, has just been opened to enrich the cultural map of the country and pay tribute to one of the most important contemporary artists ever born in Portugal. The official opening of Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, designed by architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, took place on September 18 and naturally it is marked by an exhibition of a significant collection of works by Paula Rego, as well as some by her husband, artist and art critic Victor Willing (1928-1988). The new museum’s virgin exhibition will be on view until March 2010.
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Much more than an exhibition...

A unique, three-day multi-faceted experience, providing outstanding opportunities to reach deep into the Digital Technology, Media, IT, Communication and Digital Entertainment industries opens up in Malta from 4 to 6 of November, 2009. This is when the second edition of the Malta International Digital Arts Expo is taking place, including an extensive exhibition area, top international brands, leading international speakers, training zones, conferences, effective B2B networking and a digital gallery zone!
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Theatre gems for the new season

Four new productions make up the programme of Cyprus’ main state theatre for the first half of the new season that runs until the beginning of January 2010. The Cyprus Theatre Organisation (ThOC) is the leading stage on the island and has been presenting top Cypriot and foreign productions in Cyprus and abroad. This year the season kicks off on October 11 with a children’s play that has been a major success in many countries: Jeff Brumbeau’s The Quiltmaker's Gift Sunday morning performances. Three more premieres take place in November: Brian Clark’s Whose life is it anyway?, David Eldridge’s Festen and Ovid’s adaptation of Metamorphosis.
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Rockabilly: living the 50s

The 1950s was an exuberant decade that saw the birth of rock and roll, new fashions and social mores, and a breakaway generation who became known as teenagers. At the turn of the 21st century there are some for whom the '50s never died. Photographer Steven Siewert has spent years documenting Sydney's rockabillies, a vibrant subculture who live and breathe an era that predates their earliest birthdays. The boys dress for cool with stovepipe jeans and slick quiffs, while the women wear dazzling cocktail frocks by night and colourful vintage dresses by day. You can see them all in the exhibition held at The Family of Man in Luxembourg until the end of the year.
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Brussels Dream relived in Bratislava

In 1958, the Czechoslovak pavilion at the World Expo in Brussels was an international triumph. Fifty-one years later, artefacts from this extremely successful exhibit for promoting Czechoslovak life-style, culture, design, fashion, craftsmanship and overall ingenuity at the dawn of the Atomic Age can be revisited at the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, in an exhibition that runs through November 15. The exhibition had been presented last year in Prague’s City Gallery and earlier this year in Brno.
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Cyprus Symphony Orchestra new season

The Cyprus Symphony Orchestra is kicking off the new season 2009/2010 with a series of concerts in cities and the countryside all over the island. Being the main state symphony orchestra since 2006, when it was founded, CySO plays an important role in the cultural life of Cyprus, by presenting symphonic performances for audiences of all ages and promoting knowledge and cultivating appreciation for classical music. This new season CySO is giving 22 concerts as part of its regular season program and another 7 as part of the Community Outreach Programme “Music for All”.
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The magic of puppets thrills Cyprus

Once a small village on the south east outskirts of Nicosia, Latsia is today one of the largest and most populous suburbs of the Cypriot capital. For the last three years, Latsia has been playing host to the only major event focused on the art of puppetry and mime. The International Puppet and Mime Festival of Cyprus, organized by the municipality of Latsia, is bringing to the Mediterranean island some of the best theatre companies of the genre from around the world. This year, there is a full program of events starting at 9am on October 22 with the last performances on November 2.
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Colourful times with puppets and mimes

With more than a hundred performances, seminars, workshops, street happenings, exhibitions and screenings, Greece’s most exciting festival for the young celebrates its 11th edition in the northern Greek city of Kilkis, just south of Thessaloniki. The International Puppet and Mime Festival, which runs from September 29 until October 13, brings together artists, puppeteers and theatre companies from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America in a colourful gathering which is one of its kind.
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Thessaloniki’s Film Fest Turns 50!

Soul searching is a necessary process when you reach a certain age of maturity. Greece’s most important cinematic event in the cultural calendar of the year, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, reached this point and is asking itself and followers as it turns fifty: Why cinema now? It’s more of a rhetorical question of course to prepare us all for the idea that the festival in the northern Greek is not just about watching movies. It is rather an occasion for thought, dialogue, communication, interaction in a jubilee reaching its peak from 13 to 22 of November.
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Placebo Battle for the Sun

With 38 gigs in 34 cities and 14 countries in Europe from October to the end of December, the legendary alternative rock band of Placebo completes their Euro-tour for 2009. The London-based trio of Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal and Steve Forrest was founded back in 1994. Six studio albums, six EPs and 27 singles later, they gained a considerable amount of international recognition, and sold over ten million albums worldwide (one million in the UK alone). The promotion of their latest work Battle for the Sun brings them now to France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Poland, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, UK and Ireland.
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Get a LIFFe!

It’s been twenty years since the first Ljubljana International Film Festival opened for the first time with the promise to return every autumn and bring to the Slovenian capital the latest best films that have been awarded by the most distinguished festivals in the world, like those of Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Rotterdam. Throughout twelve days, from 11 to 22 of November, more than 50,000 cinephiles in Ljubljana and Maribor will once again attend the screenings of the wonderful films chosen by LIFFe.
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Ars Fennica 2009 candidates line-up

Ars Fennica is Finland’s biggest visual art prize and the annual joint exhibition of works by the year’s five candidates is one of the most important events on the country’s cultural calendar. The Ars Fennica prize is awarded to one artist, in recognition of distinctive artistic output of high merit. This year, the five candidates present their new work, including many pieces made specifically for the exhibition, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, from October 9, 2009 to January 10, 2010.
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Harro! A Classic of Finnish Pop Art

A super star is in Tallinn and he’s staying for six months. And you can’t miss him! He is a brightly coloured fat pig with human qualities, having a cosy night in front of the television with his family, showing off his fine cars and boats or punching things with his fist. This is the creation of Finish pop artist Harro Koskinen (b. 1945, Turku), whose controversial artworks can be seen at the KuMu art museum’s 4th floor (B-wing). Harro! A Classic of Finnish Pop Art will be on show until March 28, 2010.
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Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism

After its great success at the Tate Modern in London, with more than 100 thousand visitors, and at the SMCA in Athens' the exhibition Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism comes to Madrid to be presented by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) in October 21. If you couldn’t see it while in London or Athens, you still have time until January 11, 2010, to witness what the British press hailed as the show of the work of two avant-garde Russians who paved the way for Warhol.
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The Kukeri take the streets of Pernik

Keeping up with a still-surviving centuries-old tradition that goes back to its earliest origins in pagan times, the city of Pernik, in a small distance southwest of the Bulgarian capital, organizes every even year one of the country’s most interesting festivals. The International Festival of Masquerade Games, or Surva, which counts 44 years of history, will once again take the streets of the beautiful city and the hearts of the locals and visitors to the area. Be there from 29 to 31 of January 2010 for the festival’s 19th edition.
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Listen to Vilnius’ Urban Stories

If you are wondering which is the top contemporary art event in the Lithuanian capital this year, search no more. It is definitely the X Baltic Triennial of International Art, organized by the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius and running until November 22, as part of the cultural calendar of the European Capital of Culture 2009. Titled Urban Stories, this contemporary art project covers peripheral parts -suburbs and sleeping districts- of the city of Vilnius, where European artists create a different map of daily life, enriching the traditional image of the old city with the touch of modern reality.
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Choristers invade Malta

Choirs of different styles and levels of achievements as well as ensembles and music groups from all over the world will get together for four days on the beautiful island of Malta to compete in a unique contest that will surely captivate the international and national audiences. The third edition of the International Choir Competition and Festival of Malta runs from October 29 to November 2, 2009 and gives participants a unique opportunity to get to know people from countless nations, cultures and religions and experience unforgettable times as they sing and make music together in a peaceful competition.
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Picturing New York

Depicting both the iconic city of New York that captivates the world's imagination and the idiosyncratic details that define New Yorkers' sense of home, the exhibition on show at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from November 25, 2009 to February 7, 2010, reveals the American metropolis in all its vitality, ambition and beauty. Picturing New York is a photographic anthology of 150 masterworks from the extraordinary collection of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), taken by artists pursuing their own curiosity as well as professionals on assignment and covering the period from the 1880s to the present day.
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Exotic art from the Orient in Riga

If you are in Latvia you don’t have to go half the way around the globe to see ethnic applied art from faraway and exotic places like India, Indochina and Indonesia. Just around the corner, in the capital of Riga, you can always visit the Museum of Foreign Art where you can see its current exhibition From India to Indonesia running until the end of the year. The museum’s Oriental art collection is the only one in the country and the permanent exposition presents Chinese art from the 16th to the 20th century.
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The interior world of objects

Using everyday objects that collected from both sides of the divided city of Nicosia, American artist Elizabeth Hoak Doering makes a strong comment on the way things mark the passage of time and become actors in the compilation and composition of history. In her exhibition titled amanuensis, at the Pharos Centre for Contemporary Art in Nicosia until November 13, the artist sets up a haunting scenario in which the interior world of things is revealed, upending the usual subject-object relationship that people have with objects around them.
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A fresh air at the Bulgaria Hall

Home to the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bulgaria Concert Hall hosts concerts by two fresh and dynamic distinguished ensembles in the 2009/10 season. The New Symphony Orchestra gives six concerts featuring Bulgarian and foreign soloists interpreting a diverse repertoire, while the Classic FM Radio Orchestra is present with an equal number of concerts at the 1930-built impressive hall. The season for the two orchestras opens October 11, 2009, and closes June 5, 2010.
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Art under your skin…

Skin is our natural “interface” with the world, but it is progressively being replaced by technological extensions, some of which can have liberating, other rather new restrictive, effects. The cross-disciplinary exhibition sk-interfaces presents twenty international artists who question the ways in which today’s techno-sciences alter our relation to the world. You can visit the display at the Casino Luxembourg–Forum d’art contemporain until January 10, 2010.
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The Spirit of Budo

An exhibition that seeks the understanding of viewers about the brief history of Japanese martial arts, from the battlefield combat techniques (bujutsu) to popular sports or physical exercise tempering body and spirit (budo) is on show at the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia until October 14. The exhibition The Spirit of Budo: The History of Japan's Martial Arts is organized by the Embassy of Japan in Bulgaria and The Japan Foundation against a background of strong overseas interest in Japan's martial-arts culture.
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Diana Krall’s Quiet Nights in Europe

With a Canadian and US tour now behind her, international jazz superstar Diana Krall is focusing on her remaining European trek behind her latest album, the Brazilian bossa nova-flavored Quiet Nights. The remaining part of her European leg in October and November 2009 is a hectic 37-date tour that spans 33 cities in 19 countries: France, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, FYRoM, Serbia, Romania, Czech Rep. and Russia. If you’re anywhere close where she performs do not miss the opportunity.
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