On 2 May 2010, the Varna Summer International Music Festival launched a broadcast project entitled “The Festivals of Europe”. The project includes a series of interviews of members of the European Festivals Association (EFA) that are broadcasted at a weekly basis on Radio Varna (Branch of the Bulgarian National Radio) – at www.radiovarna.com. The next EFA General Assembly and Conference in 2011 will be held in Varna, Bulgaria. Varna Summer International Music Festival is the host of this Assembly. In the same year we will celebrate 85th anniversary of our festival. Having an idea to celebrate on these occasions, the festival created a project called “The Festivals of Europe”. In the duration of one year, every week Varna Summer will present the members of EFA in a radio broadcast. The Varna Summer Festival would like to attract the attention of the local audience to festival activities and especially to the values of EFA. This way the festival will prepare bigger awareness among local society and larger coverage of the EFA General Assembly next year. Starting on 2 May 2010 the members of the European Festivals Association will be presented in a series of broadcasts on Radio Varna, a branch of the Bulgarian National Radio. Every Sunday from 7 to 8 pm (EET) one festival will be the topic of the show. The first broadcast – an interview with EFA Secretary General Kathrin Deventer (2 May) – was dedicated to EFA. These series will end just before the General Assembly in Varna. The organisers believe that the presentation of festivals will contribute to the promotion of EFA activities. The presentations include a description of each festival, an interview about the latest festival edition with the director or his representative, and audio recordings of festival programs. This is a great opportunity to re-create the festival atmosphere with live-recorded music from each festival. The interviews will be about development, artistic vision, original projects and programme of the current edition, the role of the festival at local, national and international level; curious, remarkable and funny facts will be mentioned as well. In one word – the aim is to see the vitality of each festival place. The interviews will be featured on the EFA website. The Varna Summer Festival is currently looking for opportunities to repeat the broadcasts on other programmes of Bulgarian national radio. The main goal is to present both the cultural diversity and the common values of EFA members, and to popularise their achievements. There are so many original productions which deserve to receive greater exposure and visibility. The collaboration for producing this project proved to be fruitful in terms of knowing and better understanding one another. On the other hand, the radio audience will greatly benefit by this submerging in each festival’s atmosphere. The series will show the many different nuances in the way of thinking and approaches to festival programming. The Festival invites its audience to discover the festivals’ diverse points of view towards forming the festival spaces. With this project, Varna Summer hopes to enrich the festival’s audience and everybody listening to the broadcasts – through the advantages of the radio network. Interviews can be listened to live at Radio Varna on www.radiovarna.com every Sunday in Bulgarian language with wonderful music provided by EFA members: • EET: 7-8pm • CET: 6-7pm • GMT: 5-6pm Next broadcast on 9 May is dedicated to the Rheingau Music Festival featuring an interview with the festival’s Director Michael Herrmann. (Text by Plamena Tsoneva and Roumi Petrova – Varna Summer International Music Festival) Related links: • EFA Multimedia Gallery (all interviews) • Interview Kathrin Deventer, EFA Secretary General (Part 1; Part 2; Part 3)