The 2017 edition of the George Enescu International Festival brings to Bucharest and seven other cities around Romania more than 3,000 of the most appreciated foreign and Romanian artists, performing in over 80 different events. The theme of the 2017 edition is light, designed to allow the audience, by the way it falls or is projected, to discover new perspectives and to find new meanings, even in seemingly familiar experiences.<br /> <br /> With a new, first-class international directing team – Zubin Mehta, Honorary President and Vladimir Jurowski, Artistic Director - the festival will put the music and creation of George Enescu in a new light, as well as classical music in general. As part of this endeavour, the festival will put technology to the service of classical music and creativity, presenting famous works in an entirely new way; it will put contemporary music at the forefront, inviting to Bucharest some of the best-known composers today for the first time; it will give the audience the chance to enjoy a record number of works by Enescu (37) – two of which will be presented at the festival for the first time in history – and it will tune mathematics to the sound of music, inside Creative Bucharest.<br /> <br /> The standard will be set by the festival's opening concert on September 2nd, when the concert version of Enescu's opera <em>Oedipe </em>will be<em> </em>performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of conductor Vladimir Jurowski, with multimedia direction by Carmen Lidia Vidu, Mathis der Maler. The concert is part of a series of Great Orchestras of the World, also featuring the Munich, Israel and Scala Philharmonics, as well as the National Orchestra of France. You should also look out for the series of midnight concerts, which begin at 22:30 on most evenings throughout the festival.<br /> <br /> The main venue will, as always, be the Atheneum, but smaller events are being held at Bucharest's other auditoriums, particularly Sala Palatlui and Sala Radio.<br /> <br /> Many of the festival's concerts have been sold out since tickets went on sale in February. You should check the festival's website for current availability. If you are unable to get your hands on any tickets, there will be free (and yet high quality) concerts in Piata Revolutiei (renamed <em>Piata Festivalului</em> for the duration of the festival) most evenings. Access to these concerts will be strictly first-come, first served.