InterUrban

In 2023, we will bring the whole world to Veszprém: 25 cities from 25 countries will introduce themselves, alternating every two weeks, bringing the melodies, flavours, and talent of distant lands.

We’ll take a real trip around the world without leaving Veszprém and the region. A photographer from Katowice, a singer from Trenčín or even a Finnish mumin from Tampere, may move into our neighbourhood or, maybe, appear at the nearest railway station. You might unexpectedly run into a flamenco guitarist from Seville or even an Ibagué fiesta or get acquainted with traditional Colombian folk music and dance such as "bunde", "bambuco", or "pasillo" not only in Veszprém but on the shores of Lake Balaton or in a shady Bakony village store. Music is the main focus, but each city will bring something it is particularly proud of. Almost everything is on offer in the year-long programme from fine arts to sports to gastronomy.

What links Veszprém to Seville, Ghent, or Kingston, Jamaica? Music plays a prominent role in everyday life in cities. Not a week goes by without a musical programme for young and old, amateurs and professionals. Around the world, nearly 60 cities proudly bear the UNESCO City of Music label –they are the main protagonists who make up the cultural mosaic, InterUrban. Sister cities with whom we have a decades-long friendship, former and future European Capitals of Culture will also arrive in Veszprém to participate.

Opening the series will be Kaunas, the 2022 European Capital of Culture city which will symbolically hand over the baton to Veszprém. The festive year will start with a unique experience, a concert by a Lithuanian loop artist, the one-person band Daumantas Lukošiūnas, who is sure to steal the audience’s heart as he involves them in his performance. In December, we say goodbye and end the InterUrban shows wishing good luck to Bad Ischl in Austria, the host of the 2024 ECoC season.