More than 120,000 people attended this year's edition of the George Enescu festival including thousands from around the world.

The event, which celebrates the work of the renowned Romanian composer and brings some of the world’s finest orchestral musicians to Romania, proved again it was one of the country's most important events.

According to representatives of the event, quoted by news agency Agerpres, some 20,000 tickets were purchased from abroad.

The festival had a total budget of RON 39 million (some EUR 9 million) this year, of which RON 35 million (EUR 8 million) came from public sources and the rest from private contributions and ticket sales.

More than 150 events were scheduled between September 1 and September 28 in Bucharest and several other cities across the country.

As part of the festival, American actor John Malkovich came for the first time to Romania, playing the role of a serial killer in The Infernal Comedy – Confessions of a Serial Killer in September.

The festival program also included Vortice Dance Company’s Dracula show and Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung (Der Ring des Nibelungen) tetralogy performance.

The festival also expanded this year with a spinoff project, called Creative Bucharest, aiming to reinvent key locations in the Romanian capital through urban art and visual elements.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Enescu festival on Facebook, photographer Andrei Gindac)