Art and Abart

What a difference a few degrees of latitude make. Back in Hamburg the weather is cool, trees are reflected in puddles ... everything is gre...

Laurence Vittes is a music critic in Los Angeleles. Here his view on the Maribor Festival.

You know you are in a wine growing region when grape vines grow on railway tracks. This picture was taken near Rüdesheim on the Rhine River....

All trees in the back yards from Salzburg to Frankfurt are dripping with fruit. It has been that sort of autumn. On the Kauber Platte (the ...

I closed the painting pad … took a last look over the Maribor roofs from the hotel window ...... then took the train to Graz (90 minute...

During the music festival my paintings of musicians have been displayed at the Isabella Cafe in the Postna Ulica. The owners are committed t...

Bach's Chaconne (played by Tognetti), Arvo Pärt, John Adams, Vivaldi's Gloria in D Major in the Maribor Cathedral. Brillaint choice ...

One of the highlights of the festival here in Maribor has been hearing Il Giardino Armonico founded in 1985 for musicians who have special...

Tonights concert was a musical timeline with snippets from 40,000 BC to now with accompanying pictures on the screen behind: paintings, the ...

I attended a wedding today, though I don't know whose. I had sought refuge from the heatwave that has enveloped the region and was sitt...

I don't normally eat much icecream but it is hot and the green icecream looked so inviting that I said to the waiter (in mime-language) ...

The music and painting schedule has been hectic and today I ran out of puff. So I took a break and wandered down to the Vinotek on the River...

Tonight I heard John Cage's work 4'33" for the first time since I heard about it in art school in Dunedin. It is odd that all m...

Italian Giovanni Sollima writes and conducts and plays cello as you have never seen it played before. He lead a group of eight cellists last...

Marino Formenti is a classical pianist, but at the late night concert last night in a local wine cellar he played a selection of jazz, inclu...

There are lots of bikes in Maribor and cars are banned from the city center. In Munich (below) there are more bikes than cars in the earl...

Christian Braica plays double bass. Clearly he loves it. He tells me he is from Romania originally but now plays with the Frankfurt radio or...

This is the winner of the local violin competiton playing in the small but beautiful Kazina Hall during the 5pm concert. Then at 7:30 in t...

I intended to upload another image of Maribor but I discovered that in the four days I have been here I have only taken one. All my photos a...

As I walked the block or two into Maribor from the station I felt a rush of Endorphine, the happy-hormone. How nice to be back. Back among t...