A Symphony of Culture and Elegance
Vienna's Musikverein hosts the Vienna Philharmonic's famous New Year's Concert each January. Composers including Beethoven and Brahms once lived and worked in the same city. Visitors can tour the hall's gilded Golden Hall, known for its exceptional acoustics. Street musicians dressed as Mozart still sell concert tickets around the city centre.
Vibrant Streets, Timeless Rhythms
Havana's music scene gained global attention through the Buena Vista Social Club recordings of the 1990s. Ageing musicians from earlier decades were reunited to record classic Cuban son. Visitors can hear similar son and salsa bands playing nightly in bars across Old Havana. The original club itself was a members-only venue from the 1940s.
Lights, Luxury and Limitless Fun
Las Vegas built its music reputation on long term concert residencies along the Strip. Major pop and rock stars now perform dozens of shows a year in dedicated arenas. Visitors can catch the same headline act on any night of a multi month run. Casino resorts compete to book the biggest residency names.
Rock Legends, Lake Views, Local Grit
Cleveland won the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after a magazine poll named it America's top rock city. Architect I.M. Pei designed the glass pyramid building on the shore of Lake Erie. Visitors can see stage costumes and handwritten lyrics from decades of rock history. New inductees are honoured there during an annual ceremony.
Cultural heart of Bavarian music heritage
Bayreuth hosts the Richard Wagner Festival inside a theatre the composer designed himself. The Festspielhaus was built in 1876 specifically for Wagner's operas. Visitors can attend performances staged there every summer using much of the original architecture. Tickets for the festival are famously difficult to secure due to long waiting lists.
The ultimate blend of sun, sand and Art Deco charm
Miami Beach hosts the Ultra Music Festival, one of the world's largest electronic dance events. The multi day festival fills Bayfront Park with international DJs each spring. Visitors can also find year round electronic music at clubs along Washington Avenue. Miami Music Week now surrounds the festival with additional parties across the city.
Vibrant City of Sun and Fun
Miami became a centre for Latin pop and reggaeton production through the 1990s and 2000s. Recording studios along Calle Ocho have hosted major Latin artists for decades. Visitors can hear live salsa bands at open air clubs in Little Havana most weekends. The city's Latin music influence extends across its radio stations and award shows.
Wall history, Museum Island and all-night clubs
Berlin's techno scene grew out of abandoned buildings left empty after the Berlin Wall fell. Club Berghain, housed in a former power station, became one of techno's most famous venues. Visitors can queue for entry outside its notoriously selective door most weekends. The city's techno culture was added to Germany's list of intangible cultural heritage.
State/Prefecture in United States
Cajun Soul and Vibrant Culture
Louisiana's Cajun and zydeco traditions grew out of French speaking communities in the state's southwest. Accordion and washboard rhythms still drive dance halls around towns like Lafayette. Visitors can join a Saturday morning zydeco breakfast where bands play while people eat and dance. Fais do-do dance parties keep the tradition alive across small town Louisiana.
Japan's capital of temples, towers and food
Tokyo popularised karaoke box culture, with private singing rooms found on nearly every block. The Shibuya district also gave its name to Shibuya-kei, a pop genre from the 1990s. Visitors can rent a private karaoke room by the hour in towers packed with rooms. Record shops around Shibuya still stock vinyl tied to that scene.
City in Democratic Republic of the Congo
Vibrant riverfront city pulsing with music
Kinshasa is the home of Congolese rumba, a genre built on interlocking electric guitar lines. UNESCO recognised the style as intangible cultural heritage in 2021. Visitors can hear rumba bands perform live in nightclubs across the city most weekends. Musicians there still draw on rhythms first popularised by Congolese bands in the 1950s.
Motor City’s Revitalized Arts and Culture Scene
Detroit's Motown Records launched from a modest house on West Grand Boulevard in 1959. Studio A inside that house recorded hits for artists like the Supremes and Marvin Gaye. Visitors can tour the original studio, preserved much as it looked in the 1960s. The Motown Museum has expanded around that same small building.
Bohemian spirit on the wild Atlantic
Galway's pubs host informal traditional Irish music sessions almost every night of the week. Musicians bring their own fiddles, flutes and accordions and simply join in. Visitors can listen for free from a stool at bars like Tig Cóilí. The city's buskers also fill Shop Street with live music throughout the day.
Where urban life meets stunning beaches
Sydney's pub rock scene in the 1970s launched bands including AC/DC and Rose Tattoo. Small venues across the city hosted the loud, guitar driven sound that defined the era. Visitors can see a laneway named after AC/DC frontman Bon Scott downtown. Live rock pubs in suburbs like Newtown still carry on that same tradition.
Where history and elegance meet
Saint Petersburg's Mariinsky Theatre has staged ballet and opera since it opened in 1860. Composers like Tchaikovsky premiered major works on its stage during the nineteenth century. Visitors can tour the theatre's gilded interior between scheduled performances. The Mariinsky's resident orchestra and ballet company still perform there most nights of the week.
State/Prefecture in United States
Beyond the city that never sleeps
Upstate New York hosted the original Woodstock festival on a dairy farm near Bethel in 1969. Roughly 400,000 people gathered there for three days of live music. Visitors can walk the same sloped field, now preserved as a historic site. A museum on the grounds displays memorabilia and footage from the original festival.
Colorful alleys and silver history
Guanajuato hosts the Cervantino Festival, one of Latin America's largest performing arts events. Streets and plazas across the city fill with musicians during the festival each October. Visitors can also catch student estudiantina groups serenading crowds through narrow alleys year round. The festival draws performers from dozens of countries to the city's colonial theatres.
Baroque Beauty and Musical Magic
Salzburg is the birthplace of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born there in 1756. His childhood home on Getreidegasse now operates as a museum of his life and instruments. Visitors can see his childhood violin displayed among personal letters and manuscripts. The Salzburg Festival each summer still centres heavily on performances of his work.
Where Urban Life Meets Nature
Auckland's Flying Nun Records launched the Dunedin sound that defined New Zealand indie music in the 1980s. Bands signed there gained a cult following well beyond the country's shores. Visitors can browse vinyl from that era inside independent record shops around the city. Live venues around K Road still host homegrown indie acts.
A Tapestry of History and Modernity
London's Abbey Road Studios recorded most of the Beatles' catalogue across the 1960s. The zebra crossing just outside became famous from the cover of the Abbey Road album. Visitors can photograph themselves crossing the same stripes tourists still recreate daily. The studio remains an active recording space for major artists today.
State/Prefecture in United States
Blues Roots and Southern Hospitality
Mississippi's Delta region is considered the birthplace of the blues in its earliest recorded form. Legend places guitarist Robert Johnson at a rural crossroads near Clarksdale. Visitors can tour the Delta Blues Museum housed in a former freight depot in Clarksdale. Juke joints scattered across the region still host live blues most weekends.
The heartbeat of Brazil's coast
Rio de Janeiro's samba schools rehearse year round for the city's Carnival parade each February. Thousands of dancers and drummers perform choreographed routines inside the Sambadrome stadium. Visitors can watch rehearsals at neighbourhood samba schools during the months leading up to Carnival. Live samba also fills bars in the Lapa district most weekend nights.
Jazz, Creole Flavors and Mardi Gras Vibes
New Orleans is widely credited as the birthplace of jazz in the early twentieth century. Preservation Hall in the French Quarter still hosts traditional jazz bands nightly. Visitors can stand shoulder to shoulder inside the small, un-air-conditioned room to watch a set. Brass bands also parade through the streets during second line celebrations most weekends.
Vibrant markets and historic waterfront charm
Dakar gave rise to mbalax, a percussion heavy style built around the sabar drum. Singer Youssou N'Dour helped carry mbalax to audiences well beyond Senegal. Visitors can hear sabar drummers perform at street celebrations and nightclubs across the city. N'Dour still owns a music venue in Dakar where mbalax acts regularly perform.
Five boroughs of skyline, food and museums
New York City's CBGB club launched the American punk scene starting in 1973. Bands like the Ramones and Talking Heads played some of their earliest shows there. Visitors can see the club's former Bowery storefront, now home to a clothing store. A preserved awning replica and photos inside still reference the venue's punk history.
Soulful rhythms echo through historic streets
Memphis' Sun Studio recorded Elvis Presley's first single in 1954. The small studio also launched the careers of Johnny Cash and B.B. King. Visitors can stand on the same floor markings where Elvis once stood to record. Beale Street nearby still fills with live blues clubs most nights of the week.
Music, hot chicken and honky tonks
Nashville's Grand Ole Opry has broadcast live country music performances since 1925. Music Row nearby holds dozens of recording studios and publishing houses for the genre. Visitors can tour the Ryman Auditorium, the Opry's former home known for its wooden pews. Songwriters still play unplugged sets at bars along Lower Broadway most nights.
Vibrant culture meets pristine beaches
Jamaica gave rise to reggae music through artists like Bob Marley in Kingston's Trench Town. Marley's former home there is now preserved as a small museum. Visitors can tour the house and see instruments and stage outfits on display. Sound systems still play reggae and dancehall at street parties across the island.
Creative Energy on the River Avon
Bristol is widely credited as the birthplace of trip hop, pioneered by acts like Massive Attack. The genre blended hip hop beats with dub reggae basslines from local sound system culture. Visitors can find murals around Bristol referencing the scene's key artists and albums. Record shops in Stokes Croft still stock vinyl from that era.
Where History, Pubs and Culture Collide
Dublin's Temple Bar district fills with live traditional music spilling out of pubs most evenings. U2 also built their recording studio, Hanover Quay, along the city's docklands. Visitors can catch a fiddle and bodhrán session inside pubs like The Cobblestone. The city's traditional music sessions run informally without any set schedule or stage.
Where nature and innovation converge
Seattle is widely credited as the birthplace of grunge, popularised by Nirvana in the early 1990s. Independent label Sub Pop signed many of the scene's defining acts. Visitors can see a bronze statue of Jimi Hendrix, another Seattle native, near Capitol Hill. Small clubs like the Crocodile still host touring rock bands most nights.
Mediterranean Energy, Timeless Charm
Ibiza became a centre for electronic dance music after DJs began playing all night sets in the 1980s. Clubs like Pacha and Amnesia built reputations that still draw crowds each summer. Visitors can dance until sunrise at open air terraces overlooking the Mediterranean. The island's clubbing season now runs from May to October most years.
Jazz, Castles and Lake Geneva Views
Montreux hosts a jazz festival along Lake Geneva that has run since 1967. The band Queen recorded several albums at a studio in the town during the 1970s. Visitors can see a bronze statue of Freddie Mercury standing along the lakeside promenade. The Montreux Casino, referenced in a famous Deep Purple song, still stands nearby.
Cuba’s Colonial Gem by the Sea
Trinidad's Casa de la Trova has hosted live Cuban son music inside the same building for decades. Elderly musicians there still play traditional string and percussion arrangements most evenings. Visitors can sit at outdoor tables just steps from the open doorway to listen free. Cobbled streets and colonial plazas provide a backdrop for the music.
State/Prefecture in United States
Music, mountains and Southern charm
Tennessee's border town of Bristol hosted the 1927 sessions later called the Big Bang of country music. Producer Ralph Peer recorded early stars including the Carter Family there in a rented warehouse. Visitors can tour a museum in Bristol built around those historic recordings. The sessions are considered the starting point of commercial country music.
Creative energy meets rich history
Leipzig's Thomaskirche employed composer Johann Sebastian Bach as its choir director for 27 years. Bach is buried inside the same church where he once led performances. Visitors can hear the boys' choir he once directed sing there most weekends. A museum across the square displays manuscripts and instruments tied to his time in the city.
The city of stars, beaches and dreams
Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon became a hub for folk and rock songwriters in the late 1960s. Musicians like Joni Mitchell wrote songs while living in its hillside houses. Visitors can drive the same winding roads past homes once shared by that era's musicians. The nearby Sunset Strip still hosts live rock clubs like the Whisky.
Vibrant city amidst stunning nature
Reykjavik hosts Iceland Airwaves, a music festival that takes over venues across the small city each November. Musician Björk got her start in Reykjavik clubs before her international career. Visitors can catch live sets in record shops and cafes during the festival's off venue shows. Most venues sit within easy walking distance of each other.
Tropical beaches, vibrant culture and adventure
Bali's temples regularly host gamelan orchestras made up of bronze gongs and metallophones. Musicians tune each instrument by ear rather than to a fixed pitch. Visitors can watch a gamelan ensemble accompany traditional dance performances at evening temple ceremonies. Villages across the island still train young players in the same techniques.
Vibrant Culture in the Andean Highlands
Bogotá hosts Rock al Parque, one of the largest free rock festivals in Latin America. The multi day event fills Simón Bolívar Park with international and local bands. Visitors can attend without paying for a ticket at any of the outdoor stages. The festival has run since 1995 and draws hundreds of thousands of fans.
India's bustling coastal metropolis
Mumbai's film studios produce the majority of Bollywood's soundtrack recordings each year. Playback singers there record vocals that are later lip synced by on screen actors. Visitors can tour recording studios in neighbourhoods like Andheri where many soundtracks are made. Live orchestras still record film scores in sessions that can run through the night.
Mariachi, murals and modern flair
Guadalajara is considered the birthplace of mariachi music in its modern form. Plaza de los Mariachis fills with bands in full charro dress most evenings. Visitors can hire a mariachi group on the spot to play a few songs. The city hosts an international mariachi festival each September drawing performers from across Mexico.
A city of festivals, food and culture
Montreal hosts one of the world's largest jazz festivals each summer across downtown streets. Free outdoor stages fill entire city blocks with live performances for ten days. Visitors can wander between dozens of concerts without buying a single ticket. The festival has run since 1980 and draws performers from across the globe.
A rooftop walk on an iceberg
Oslo Opera House was designed with a sloped white roof that visitors can walk on. Its marble surface rises straight from the waters of the Oslo Fjord. Visitors can climb to the top for harbour views before catching a performance inside. The building has hosted the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet since 2008.
Skyline, Deep-Dish and Jazz Nights
Chicago's Chess Records recorded electric blues pioneers like Muddy Waters starting in the 1950s. Migrants from the Mississippi Delta brought the blues north and plugged it into electric guitars there. Visitors can tour the former Chess Records studio, now a small museum. Blues clubs on the South Side still host live bands most nights.
Live music, lakes and local flavor
Austin adopted the slogan Live Music Capital of the World decades ago and has kept it since. More than 250 live music venues operate within the city limits. Visitors can catch a free outdoor set along Sixth Street on most nights. The SXSW festival each March draws thousands of musicians and industry visitors to town.
Music Legends, Waterfront Wonders, Culture
Liverpool's Cavern Club hosted nearly 300 performances by the Beatles before their rise to fame. The original cellar club was demolished in the 1970s and later rebuilt nearby using salvaged bricks. Visitors can watch tribute bands play the same small stage most nights. The Beatles Story museum nearby traces the group's rise to global fame.
A city of music, art and warmth
Glasgow's King Tut's Wah Wah Hut is where a record label first discovered the band Oasis in 1993. The small venue still hosts touring bands on a stage barely larger than a living room. Visitors can see a plaque inside marking the spot of that discovery. Glasgow was later named a UNESCO City of Music.
Afro-Brazilian Soul on the Sea
Salvador's Pelourinho district shelters Olodum, a percussion group known for its Afro-Brazilian drumming. The group's drum corps rehearses in the streets and has recorded with international pop artists. Visitors can watch open air rehearsals echo through the neighbourhood's colonial plazas. Salvador's Carnival also centres on live music trucks called trios elétricos.
The heart of culture and coffee
Melbourne calls itself Australia's live music capital, with hundreds of venues packed into its laneways. Small rooms above and below street level host bands almost every night. Visitors can wander from pub to pub along streets like Chapel and Brunswick. The city counts more live venues per person than almost anywhere else in the world.
Where Tradition Meets High-Tech Marvels
Seoul houses the major entertainment companies that produce most of the world's K-pop acts. Trainees there rehearse for years before debuting in idol groups. Visitors can tour K-pop themed exhibits and photo studios across neighbourhoods like Gangnam. Fan meetups and pop-up stores tied to popular groups appear throughout the city.
Where diverse landscapes meet culture
Colombia's vallenato music grew out of accordion and drum traditions in the country's Caribbean region. UNESCO added the genre to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2015. Visitors can catch vallenato performed live in towns across the coastal lowlands. The annual Vallenato Legend Festival in Valledupar draws accordion players from across the country.
A Port City with Endless Charm
Hamburg's Reeperbahn district is where the Beatles played hundreds of shows before becoming famous. Clubs like the Indra and the Star-Club booked the band through the early 1960s. Visitors can walk Beatles-Platz, a small plaza with statues honouring the group's time there. Live music venues still line the same street today.
Mexico's Cultural and Artistic Jewel
Palacio de Bellas Artes houses a stage curtain made from nearly a million pieces of Tiffany glass. Murals by Diego Rivera and other muralists cover its upper gallery walls. Visitors can watch the Ballet Folklórico perform on the same stage most weeks. The building's Art Nouveau exterior overlooks Mexico City's historic centre.
Buzzing Metropolis with Coastal Charm
Lagos is the birthplace of Afrobeat, a genre pioneered by musician Fela Kuti in the 1970s. Kuti's former compound, the Kalakuta Republic, now operates as a museum. Visitors can tour rooms filled with his instruments, records and stage costumes. Fela's son continues to host Afrobeat concerts at a Lagos club called The Shrine.
Where Tango and Culture Thrive
Buenos Aires holds dozens of milongas, social dance halls where locals gather to dance tango. Some milongas have operated in the same ballrooms for more than fifty years. Visitors can take a beginner lesson before the floor opens to experienced dancers. Live tango orchestras still perform at a number of the city's historic milongas.
A vibrant mix of culture and cuisine
São Paulo hosts the Brazilian edition of Lollapalooza, one of South America's largest music festivals. The multi day event fills Interlagos park with international headliners each spring. Visitors can also catch live samba and MPB performances in bars around Vila Madalena. The city's size supports one of the busiest concert circuits in South America.
Wild Atlantic Views, Music & Craic
Dingle hosts Other Voices, a music festival held inside the town's small stone church. Musicians perform intimate acoustic sets broadcast later on Irish television. Visitors can also catch informal traditional sessions in pubs along Dingle's main street. The West Kerry peninsula surrounding the town remains a stronghold of the Irish language and its songs.
Music, Football and Urban Cool
Manchester's Haçienda club became the centre of the Madchester music scene in the late 1980s. Bands like the Stone Roses helped define the era's dance-inflected rock sound there. Visitors can see a plaque marking the club's former site, now redeveloped as apartments. Manchester's live venues still draw on that same indie and dance music heritage.
The city of love, art and history
Paris' Moulin Rouge has staged live cabaret performances since it opened in 1889. Its red windmill still turns above the entrance on Boulevard de Clichy. Visitors can watch a full orchestra accompany dancers during the nightly cabaret show. The venue helped popularise the can-can dance that remains part of its performances today.
Islands of eternal summer
Cape Verde is the homeland of morna, a slow melancholic song style sung mostly in Creole. Singer Cesária Évora carried morna to international audiences starting in the 1990s. Visitors can hear morna performed live in small bars across the islands most evenings. The genre often addresses longing for home, tied to a history of emigration.
Romantic Charm and Ancient History
Verona's Roman arena has hosted open air opera performances each summer since 1913. The nearly 2,000 year old amphitheatre seats thousands of visitors on its original stone tiers. Visitors can watch full scale productions of Aida performed beneath the night sky. Candlelight traditionally opens each evening performance before the orchestra begins.
Vibrant Culture and Coastal Charm
Accra is widely credited as the birthplace of highlife, a genre blending jazz horns with local rhythms. The style first spread through dance halls and bars across the city in the 1920s. Visitors can still catch live highlife bands playing in clubs around Osu. Ghanaian artists still draw on highlife's guitar and horn arrangements.
World’s Legendary Opera House
Teatro alla Scala in Milan has premiered operas by Verdi and Puccini since the 1700s. Its museum displays original scores and costumes from historic productions. Visitors can tour the gilded auditorium when no rehearsal is underway. La Scala's opening night each December remains one of opera's biggest annual events.
Lisbon's Historic Heartbeat
Alfama is considered the birthplace of fado, Portugal's melancholic style of song. Small tavernas throughout the neighbourhood host live fado singers most evenings. Visitors can listen to a vocalist accompanied by Portuguese guitar over a plate of grilled sardines. Steep cobbled alleys wind past the same houses where fado developed centuries ago.
Iconic Architectural and Cultural Marvel
Sydney Opera House sits on Bennelong Point with sail shaped roofs covered in white tiles. Danish architect Jørn Utzon designed the building after winning an international competition. Visitors can tour backstage areas between the concert hall and opera theatre. More than 1,800 performances take place inside each year.
Neighbourhood in Buenos Aires
Vibrant Colors and Tango Rhythms
La Boca's Caminito street fills with tango dancers performing for passersby most afternoons. Brightly painted tin houses line the same street where tango first took shape. Visitors can watch impromptu street performances near outdoor cafes along the block. The neighbourhood also holds tango themed murals honouring the dance's early musicians.
World-class Opera House in Buenos Aires
Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires is ranked among the world's finest opera houses for acoustics. Its horseshoe shaped auditorium seats close to 2,500 people. Visitors can join a guided tour through the theatre's marble lobbies and rehearsal rooms. World famous conductors and singers have performed there since it opened in 1908.
Theatrical Heart of New York City
Broadway earned the nickname the Great White Way from its early rows of electric marquee lights. More than 40 theatres now line the district around Times Square. Visitors can catch a live orchestra pit performance most nights of the week. Ticket booths in Times Square sell same day seats at a discount.
Culture, beaches and incredible South Indian food
Chennai hosts the Margazhi season, weeks of Carnatic music concerts held each December and January. Hundreds of performances take place across the city's traditional music halls known as sabhas. Visitors can attend multiple concerts a day during the packed festival season. The tradition has continued in Chennai for close to a century.
Interactive Pop Music Experience
ABBA The Museum in Stockholm displays the actual costumes worn during the band's 1970s concerts. A recreated recording studio lets visitors mix their own version of an ABBA song. Guests can also step onto a hologram stage and sing alongside the group. The museum sits inside Stockholm's wider Djurgården entertainment complex.