DEAR MUSIC LOVERS,

It was thirty-one years ago that Mate Bekavac, not yet sixteen years old, first stood on the concert stage of Maribor’s Kazina Hall (alongside the young Adriana Magdovski). A year later, he participated in the newly established festival Musical September, which, under the leadership of Janko Šetinc, emerged as one of the most innovative classical music festivals in our region. Under the guidance of Brigita Pavlič, who later initiated Festival Maribor, Musical September matured into a festival of good music in the broadest sense, gaining a reputation as a crossroads where musicians could break with conventions and listeners could dispense with ossified listening habits. It is no coincidence that this crossroads is located in Maribor.

Which other Slovenian city has such diversity, such multiculturalism, with a duality of bourgeois and proletarian, extremes in every respect and, above all, a creativity that boils like the thermal water just beneath its surface?

That is why we are proud of Maribor, an open city, a city of love and curiosity. If this were not the case, there would be no Festival Maribor today. We are thrilled that Mate Bekavac, one of Slovenia’s most virtuosic, musical, open, unconventional, creative and rebellious musicians, is returning to the city. We could string together even more adjectives, but words elude us every time, just as they elude indescribable music. Maribor has always regarded Mate as one of its own, it has understood him without unnecessary words. And he returns the favour.

Mate invites us to join him on a daring musical adventure with a deep tribute to the city in the company of his fellow musicians, both foreign and local, who bet on all or nothing when it comes to music. At least for me, this is definitely a winning festival formula.