Every two years, Bucharest becomes a real-time symphony. The city vibe changes from quirky to classy as Bucharest is hosting the George Enescu Music Festival, one of the most important cultural events in Europe, dedicated to the most important musician in Romania. George Enescu was not only a brilliant violinist and pianist, but one of the greatest European composers of the 20th century. He loved and lived music from an early age and invested all of his time in composing and playing all over the world.

With a tradition of more than 50 years, the George Enescu Festival has kept the spirit of the first edition that took place in 1958 and evolved over the years to become the festival it is today – a festival well known for interesting performances and outstanding guests.

This year the festival will be organized between August 31st and September 22nd under the slogan ‘The world in harmony’.  More than 2500 talented musicians from all over the world will perform on the stage in more than 84 concerts, offering joy to thousands of people that will attend the concerts in the concert halls or in the public squares.

“The festival is everywhere” is an associate program to the George Enescu Festival this year. It will move the festival to alternative spaces and areas for different cultural events related to music. Concerts hosted in parks, cool exhibitions, hearty street food, museums strolling, and some exquisite partying are just a tiny part of what ‘The festival is everywhere‘ is about.

To have a better picture on what to expect, you can download the festival app, developed together with Samsung, one of the sponsors of the festival, from here.

As you might have guessed, as The Festival is everywhere, so are we. And happy to be a part of it. During the next three weeks we offer you 16 free guided tours in Bucharest, both in Romanian and English. So, the tours you can easily join are our best-selling “Bucharest Hidden Gems” and  the custom-made “Musicians in the city – In the footsteps of Enescu”.

The Bucharest Hidden Gems tour takes approximately three hours, and starts at the George Enescu statue on Magheru Boulevard. Both Romanian and the English-language tours take place on Fridays (September 6, 13, 20), starting 17:30.

The “Musicians in the city – In the footsteps of Enescu” tours take approximately 2 hours and start at the George Enescu statue on Magheru Boulevard. The Romanian-language tours take place on Saturdays (September 7, 14, 21) and Sundays (September 8, 15, 22), starting 17:30. The English-language tours take place on September 7, 14, 15, 22, from the same starting point, beginning at 11:00.

The tours are hosted by ‘Nouă ne pasă!’ Association, through the interestingtimes.ro program, with the support of Raiffeisen Bank Romania. If everything sounds right to you, feel free to join us on the free tours by making a reservation by e-mail at hello@interestingtimes.ro. See you there!