Audi renews its sponsorship contract with Salzburg Festival until 2007
Ingolstadt/Salzburg (ots)
AUDI AG has renewed it sponsorship contract with the Salzburg Festival until 2007. This was announced today by the President of the Salzburg Festival, Dr. Helga Rabl-Stadler, and Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of AUDI AG. Audi and its Austrian importer Porsche Austria have been the principal sponsors of the Salzburg Festival since 1995.
"We would like to be able to offer the Salzburg Festival greater security in planning their artistic events," says Winterkorn, "also in view of the Mozart Year 2006, and this decision also shows our recognition of the highly successful work of the board of directors."
Helga Rabl-Stadler emphasised the increasing importance of sponsors and benefactors for the overall budget and therefore for the Festival programme, especially because public grants have been reduced in recent years: "The way Audi practises commitment and competence in this partnership makes the company an ideal sponsor for us. We greatly appreciate the continued support the car company is now giving us in pursuing our goals." Contributions from sponsors, patrons and benefactors will amount to approximately 13 percent of the overall budget in 2003.
Audi has a tradition of promoting the arts that dates back over 20 years. The company focuses mainly on promoting music festivals. Involving the employees in this process is especially important to the company. For this reason, since the beginning of the partnership, the Salzburg Festival gives a guest performance every year in Ingolstadt, where Audi's head office is located with 30,000 employees. The guest performance of Salzburg's "Jedermann" at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt attracted a great deal of attention last year. Ingolstadt experienced the concert performance of Mozart's opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio" five days after the premiere in Salzburg.
In addition to its role of sponsor, Audi is also a successful event organizer. Together with Bayerischer Rundfunk (the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation) it founded the Summer Concerts between Danube and Altmühl which are held in the Ingolstadt region. At the beginning in 1990 there were a total of seven concerts and 5, 000 visitors; this year the figures have increased to 27 concerts and 24,000 visitors - with ticket sales of 90 %. International stars such as Carlos Kleiber, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mstislav Rostropovich, the Vienna Philharmonic as well as Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter have contributed to this success.
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AUDI AG Cultural Sponsorship Karl-Heinz Rumpf Tel: +49 (0) 160 90 85 85 85 e-mail: karl-heinz.rumpf@audi.de
Original content of: Audi AG, transmitted by news aktuell