Happy Holidays

Holiday Traditions Around the World

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Austria

SALZBURG, Austria - A wide variety of holiday concerts are available to tourists visiting Austria during the holiday season. This is to be expected in a land that gave rise to the musical genius of Wolfgang Mozart, Anton Bruckner, Johann Strauss Sr., Jr. and Franz Schubert. Concert venues range from magnificent castles and fortresses to cruise boats on the Danube and a tiny chapel along the Salzach River. The hottest ticket in Salzburg is for "Salzburger Adventsingen," a program of Advent music and folk lore which began more than a half century ago. With close to 100,000 ticket requests each year, only 30,000 will be lucky enough to gain admission.

Still, there are dozens of other concerts to be heard each week during the Advent, Christmas, and New Year season. Some of the most delightful are the candlelight concerts in the Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooking the city.

If you're lucky you may hear the unusual "Concerto for Strings and Alpenhorn" by Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang's father. Just be sure that you are not sitting in the front row where you will find several alpenhorns extending right off the stage. Other holiday concerts are held at the Mozarteum, at the outdoor Christmas Market, and in various churches and concert halls throughout the city. Just outside Salzburg, on December 24, a torchlight and lantern procession will move from the Franz Gruber School in Arnsdorf to the Silent Night Memorial Chapel in Oberndorf. You can join the procession and even sing the carols with people from all over the world who flock to the birthplace of the world's best known Christmas carol, "Silent Night."

The Advent concert series in Innsbruck features groups of family singers and instrumentalists similar to the Trapp Family Singers of "Sound of Music" fame. In Austria, it¥s not at all unusual to find families who play music, everything from classical to folk melodies, in their leisure hours. When they come together in concert at Innsbruck's Congress Hall, it becomes a memorable occasion. Meanwhile in Vienna, choirs from around the world present traditional and modern Christmas songs and folk music in the ceremonial rooms of the Vienna City Hall on weekends in November and December as part of a yearly international choral festival. The fact is, every village, every hamlet, and every city in Austria will be filled with the glorious sounds of the holiday season throughout November and December. It is truly the land of the "Sound of Music."

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