Summer in Velenje Festival

Contact

Poletne kulturne prireditve Velenje

Organised byFestival Velenje

Barbara Pokorny, Direcotr of Festival Velenje

Frequencyannual

Festival dates24.6.2015 - 31.8.2015

Summer Cultural Events [Poletne kulturne prireditve] was launched in 1984 in Velenje as one of the firs summer city festivals, a form that has widely emerged around Slovenia only decades later. The festival, since 2008 organised and coordinated by the Festival Velenje Public Institute, includes all sorts events, from music concerts, film screenings and theatre plays to sport activities and different children oriented programmes. It lasts all through July and August.

While a part of the programme is organized by the institute itself, a significant portion of it is done in cooperation with other producers. Furthermore, some other Velenje based festivals like Kunigunda Festival of Young Cultures, MoZZAJik festival and Prešmentane citre are also incorporated into the wider context of the Summer Cultural Events. They also collaborate with the Imago Sloveniae project and the Seviqc Brežice Festival.

The festival takes place at venues such as the Velenje Castle and its atrium and courtyard, the House of Culture Velenje (and its yard as well) and the bank of the Škale Lake (Škalsko jezero), and also on the many streets and parks of the city.

Festival Velenje Public Institute

The Institute was founded in 2008 as a vehicle to organize, coordinate and promote the various cultural institutions and events in the Velenje municipality. The institute organizes a few year-long music, theatre and children's cycles, runs the Kino Velenje and the Puppet and Dance theatre Velenje, sets up regional fairs and is responsible for the Pippi’s Longstocking festival, the Velenje Summer Festival and quite some other events as well.

Programme

Summer Cultural Events are comprised of a vast array of different activities, from yoga classes, an athletics competition and weekly flea markets to travelogue presentations, puppet plays for children, open-air cinema screenings, theatre performances (like the show Macbeth After Shakespeare, produced by Mini Theatre) and musical concerts.

As of the latter, the festival has hosted the likes of the fado singer Lula Pena (PT), the klezmer band The Klezmatics (US), the baroque music focused trio Ensemble Diatessaron (ES), the pop icon Josipa Lisac (HR), the world fusion group The Merry Poppins (AT), the hardcore collective Repetitor (HR), the Cuban orchestra Mariachi Real Jalisco (CU) and a diverse set of Slovene musicans like the singer-songwriter Iztok Mlakar, the 'schlager' singer Oto Pestner and the jazz bassist and composer Robert Jukič.

See also

• Velenje Castle
• Kunigunda Festival of Young Cultures
• Kino Velenje
• Imago Sloveniae
• Seviqc Brežice Festival

External links

• Velenje Summer Festival webpage (in Slovenian)
• The Mozzajik Festival webpage (in Slovenian)
• The Pippi Longstocking festival webpage
• The programme for the 2015 edition of Summer Cultural Events