Here’s a quick look at a few of the cities you’ll be visiting over the course of your program!

 

Vienna, Austria

Vienna is one the most musical cities in the world. This is partly due to the vast number of great composers and musicians who were born here or lived and worked here. Visiting Austria’s capital therefore means experiencing the works of Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Beethoven, Johann Strauss (both father and son), Liszt, Brahms, Bruckner and many others in venues like the Staatsoper and Musikverein. The music of Bach and Händel continues to be performed in Vienna’s historic churches today, and Vienna’s Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments, paired with a visit to the Haus der Musik, takes you deeper into the texture of music and how it is created. Venues for classical music are augmented by some great clubs and live rock and jazz places.

Few cities can boast the imperial grandeur of Vienna, once the centre of the powerful Habsburg monarchy. Lipizzaner stallions performing elegant equine ballet, the angelic tones of the Vienna Boys’ Choir drifting across a courtyard, outrageously opulent palaces such as Schloss Belvedere and Schloss Schönbrunn, and the monumental Hofburg complex – as a visitor today, you feel grandeur everywhere in Vienna.
Read more about Vienna here!

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague’s maze of cobbled lanes and hidden courtyards is a paradise for the aimless wanderer, always beckoning you to explore a little further. Just a few blocks away from the Old Town Square you can stumble across ancient chapels, unexpected gardens, cute cafes and old-fashioned bars with hardly a tourist in sight. One of the great joys of the city is its potential for exploration – neighbourhoods such as Vinohrady and Bubeneč can reward the urban adventurer with countless memorable cameos, from the setting sun glinting off church domes, to the strains of Dvořák wafting from an open window.

The 1989 Velvet Revolution that freed the Czechs from communism bequeathed to Europe a gem of a city to stand beside stalwarts such as Rome, Amsterdam and London. Not surprisingly, visitors from around the world have come in droves, and on a hot summer’s day it can feel like you’re sharing Charles Bridge with half of humanity. But even the crowds can’t take away from the spectacle of a 14th-century stone bridge, a hilltop castle and a lovely, lazy river – the Vltava – that inspired one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of 19th-century classical music, Smetana’s Moldau.
Read more about Prague here!

Leipzig, Germany

Hypezig! cry the papers, The New Berlin, says just about everybody. Yes, Leipzig is Saxony’s coolest city, a playground for nomadic young creatives who have been displaced even by the fast-gentrifying German capital, but it’s also a city of enormous history, a trade-fair mecca and solidly in the sights of music lovers due to its intrinsic connection to the lives and work of Bach, Mendelssohn and Wagner.

Leipzig became known as the Stadt der Helden (City of Heroes) for its leading role in the 1989 ‘Peaceful Revolution’, when its residents organised protests against the communist regime in May of that year; by October, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets and a few years later, the Cold War was history.
Read more about Leipzig here!

Eisenach, Germany

The modest appearance of hilly Eisenach, a small town on the edge of the Thuringian Forest, belies its association with two German heavyweights: Johann Sebastian Bach and Martin Luther. Luther went to school here and later returned to protective custody in the Wartburg, now one of Germany’s most famous castles and a Unesco World Heritage site. A century later, Bach, the grandest of all baroque musicians, was born in a wattle-and-daub home and attended the same school as Luther had. Eisenach also has a century-old automotive tradition – the world’s first BMW rolled off the local assembly line in 1929. And when it’s time to shake off culture and civilisation, remember that the famous Rennsteig hiking trail is only a hop, skip and jump away.
Read more about Eisenach here!

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg is storybook Austria. Standing beside the fast-flowing Salzach River, your gaze is raised inch by inch to the Altstadt’s mosaic of graceful domes and spires, the formidable clifftop fortress and the mountains beyond. It’s a view that never palls. It’s a backdrop that once did the lordly prince-archbishops and home-grown genius Mozart proud.

As tempting as it is to spend every minute in the Unesco-listed Altstadt, drifting from one baroque church and monumental square to the next in a daze of grandeur, Salzburg rewards those who venture further. Give Getreidegasse’s throngs the slip, meander side streets where classical music wafts from open windows, linger decadently over coffee and cake, and let Salzburg slowly, slowly work its magic.
Read more about Salzburg here!