Carinthian Culture Days get under way in Ljubljana
Ljubljana, 6 April - Carinthian Culture Days, the annual festival celebrating the arts, culture and heritage of the Slovenian minority in Austria, are getting under way in Ljubljana on Wednesday with the launch of an exhibition of paintings by Gustav Januš.
Klagenfurt, Austria
Klagenfurt, the capital of Austria's Carinthia, the region where the majority of Slovenians in Austria live.
Photo: Anže Malovrh/STA
File photo
Running until 28 April, the festival will feature a number of events, from book launches to readings, concerts, theatre shows and exhibitions.
The opening exhibition at the Družina Gallery will feature 40 works from Januš's recent period. An artist as well as a poet Januš is known for his modernist and metaphoric mode of expression. He will read some of his poems to the musical accompaniment of accordion players Neža Žagar and Sašo Gale on 28 April.
A bilingual interactive exhibition entitled Solidarity along the Border, Legacy of Janko Messner will be on show in the atrium of Ljubljana Town Hall until 18 April.
It will be accompanied by a recital on Friday featuring Lara Vouk, an actress and musician, and Aleksander Tolmaier, an actor, director and TV and radio host, to launch a bilingual collection of essays on author Messner (1921-2011).
On Thursday, new publications by Carinthian Slovenians will be presented at Slovenska Matica, whereas the Slovenian PEN Centre and Slovenian Writers' Association will host a literary evening to present the work of authors Gabriele Russwurm-Biro, Ivana Kampuš and Karin Prucha, who write in German and Slovenian.
A puppet show for children will be on at Mini Teater on Saturday morning and a bilingual theatre production for children and those young at heart will be staged at the JSKD theatre in the evening.
A concert of Carinthian Slovenian folk songs and more modern songs that have become recognised as folk tunes will be given at Cankarjev Dom on Sunday evening by the tamburica ensemble Tamika and the Suha Octet.
A collection of papers on the centenary of the Carinthian plebiscite edited by Danijel Grafenauer and issued by the publisher Slovenska Matica and the Institute for Ethnic Studies will be launched at Matica on 12 April.
The festival will wrap up with a debate on the experience of Slovenian publishers in Austria's Carinthia featuring award-winning publisher and author Lojze Wieser.
The festival is held under the patronage of President Borut Pahor. It has been organised by several associations from Ljubljana and Klagenfurt with the support of the Government Office for Slovenians Abroad, the Austrian Embassy in Slovenia, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Ljubljana, the Institute for Ethnic Studies and the company Moro & Kunst.
All the events, with the exception of the concert at Cankarjev Dom, are admission free but bookings are required due to limited attendance capacity.