The attention of the concertgoing public was drawn recently to two compact but cultured cities away from the well-trodden pathways of Europe.
The cities of Bamberg and Ostrava are not well-known tourist destinations for foreigners, and many non-Europeans would have difficulty in locating them. For the record, Ostrava is the larger of the two, a city roughly the size of Kumamoto in the northern Moravian region of the Czech Republic. An industrial city, Ostrava is known locally for its fine opera house, philharmonic orchestra and art gallery.
Bamberg might not be called tiny, but with only 70,000 inhabitants the Bavarian city appears to be smaller than Iwakuni, Ueda, Yamaguchi, Yatsushiro or many another Japanese city. Nonetheless, Bamberg's symphony orchestra, whose subscribers include nearly one in 10 of the local populace, is of international repute.
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