I was supposed to rewrite my book „Music Festivals in the World —to Go!“, published in 2010. I started to check the number of those music festivals in the world on the internet, which focus on opera and classical music concert. The result was beyond my expectations. More and more new information comes up constantly. The situation of music festival world has been changed dramatically last few years. Most of those festival organizations opened up their fashionable official website, and the more I searched for one, the more music festivals I came to know its existence. Even though there are so many music festivals on earth; however, there is no single portal site that reveals them all in one stroke. That is the biggest reason I thought about starting up this website.
The music season of European and American opera houses and orchestras usually starts in September and closes at the end of June before summer. And then, the whole industry is on summer vacation. That is why most of the music festivals are carried out in the summer vacation period. There are wide varieties of music festivals, from high threshold ones (almost-impossible to obtain a ticket), such as the Bayreuth (Wagner) music festival in Germany, to rather casual easy-going ones. As former chief editor for classical music journal, I have visited many music festivals and performances worldwide so far. Even though most of my business trips were not for the entire music festival; they were for interviews as well as for reportage on performance and each trip last very short time period, I was still able to encounter many excitement from the place and there are still many things to make my heart impressed with passion. Those musicians must also be inspired a lot in another different space from the usual musical activities, various wonderful performances were born in many music festivals, which carved one brilliant page in the performance history.
“Music —a spice for travel and life—„ I would expresse that way for the title on this website. Encountering fantastic music make your journey joyful, fun and enriched. Such an experience will also become priceless memories for your entire life. The web site “Around the Music Festival ＝Gekkan Ongakusai in Japanese” collects information on ca. 400 music festival around the world, designed to be your partner or gateway for a trip to music festivals, as well as a great opportunity for those „music festival curious people“.
Editor-in-chief
Yoshiyuki, TANAKA
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Yoshiyuki, Tanaka
Born in Sabae City, Fukui, Japan (1962).
Before entering Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya, Japan, he was working at Fukui Prefecture agency as civil servant.
He majored in modern Chinese political history at Graduate school of Aichi Gakuin University after 2 years of study at Beijing University in China (1986-88).
In 1990 he joined the „Sankei Shinbun“ a leading news agency in Japan as a journalist. First he was located in a brunch office such as Kawasaki and Yokohama, and then social division of the editorial department. His assignment was mainly on the imperial family: the emperor and empress’s visit to China, France, Spain and covered the Crown prince’s marriage.
He was appointed to engage in classical music division of the cultural department in 1996 and one year later founded monthly music magazine „Mostly Classic“ and worked as chief editor until 2005.
In 2006 established „Applause Co.,Ltd.“ and became an active music producer; conducting a concert series „Music in Museum“ since 2006, served as personality for talk show „Classic First“ on Radio Japan, and promotion of the first Japanese performance of Paris National Opera in 2008.