A Different Perspective That Breaks Prejudices

What distinguishes great artists? The courage to explore new perspectives, to create works that transcend the boundaries of the familiar and everyday. At the Concert Agency of the Narodni dom Maribor, which celebrates its 80th anniversary in March 2026, we embrace that challenge. We firmly believe that to truly understand and appreciate the world in all its diversity, one needs the courage to approach classical music with unconventional and even unusual insights. In the programs of the Orchestral, Chamber, and Youth cycles, as well as the Maribor Festival, you will find a series of concerts that go beyond the usual boundaries and the walls of concert halls. They are accompanied by an exhibition on display from March 16 to April 19 on Ulica škofa Maksimiljana Držečnika.

Following the motto of the anniversary concert season—which turns the number eight into the symbol of infinity—this exhibition shifts perspectives on the activities of the Concert Agency and classical music in general. Classical music is often seen by the wider public as serious, demanding, and hard to understand, disconnected from the present. Yet nothing could be further from the truth, as beautifully shown in selected photographs by Dejan Bulut, Žan Osim, and Blaž Črnič, taken during concerts of the Orchestral, Chamber, and Youth cycles and the Maribor Festival.

You won’t see tuxedos and bow ties, but jeans and tattoos. Musicians are not confined to polished parquet floors or crystal chandeliers—they perform amid concrete walls covered in graffiti and even outdoors, under the Festival Lent spotlights, on the banks of the Drava, or in the City Park. You will realize that attending classical music concerts doesn’t require expertise; even babies and toddlers enjoy them, and you may hear disco music, mobile phones, and even vegetables!

All of this is classical music, and all of this is the Concert Agency! A contemporary, dynamic, thoughtful, curious, and occasionally bold institution that embodies the essential quality of creativity: the courage to be different.

Read more about the history of the Concert Agency here.