Pécs hosts international heritage event

A multicultural festival offering over 100 arts, science and sports programmes will begin today in Pecs, S Hungary, which will be one of the cultural capital cities of Europe in 2010.

The ten-day "Hungarian Heritage Festival" will open with an open-air performance of several wind ensebles to be followed by the concerts of bands from Pecs including Golestan playing Persian Hungarian music.

Music programmes will feature everything from classical to world music, folk and jazz, performed by a number of Hungarian as well as guest groups from Croatia. The festival will offer minority programmes with presentations of Bulgarian, Greek, Croatian, German and Roma culture.

On the festival's sidelines an international folk dance meeting, the 14th European Wine-Song festival and a celebration of Grape and Wine will be held.

Hungarian soccer chief blocks Madonna ‘Sticky and Sweet’ Show

Madonna concert organizers are scrambling in Budapest after a bid to move her concert from a horse-racing track to Hungary’s biggest sports stadium was rejected by the Hungarian soccer authorities.

The sport’s local governing body won’t allow Madonna to use the Ferenc Puskas stadium on Aug. 22, to protect the field for a potential Champions’ League game four days later and two World Cup qualifying matches in September.

Madonna’s concert, part of her “Sticky and Sweet” tour, was scheduled to be held at the Kincsem Park race track near the tail end of her European tour that started in London’s O2 Arena on July 4. MLSZ, the soccer federation, has rejected an offer by local organizers to replace the stadium turf for the games.