Switzerland offers a great variety of festivals all year round. Clearly they prevale during summertime, but there are some great events to join in combination with a weekend out of your hometown during the colder months as well. This year, the festival playground gets richer with one more baby: Polaris Festival, Edition No.1.
Early wake up calls have never been my best friends – it’s actually more the contrary. Daytime routines can get rushy, busy, exhausting, depending obviously how your individual one looks like. I learned to appreciate the night and its darkness a long time ago already: I can focus better on things while everything calms down, when the streets turn into an empty world, or when a Saturday night celebration was gone far too long and the sky turns pink while an almost creepy silent train takes me home on Sunday morning. Night brings me advice, a clear mind and the most intense creativity boosts, it’s a personal love story that will never end.
Basel was for me for a long time a transit city only. Direct flights to my hometown Naples were quite rare, so I was travelling tons of times across this city just to hit the airport and be gone. I had to realize a while ago that Basel has a lot more to offer and isn’t that far away from in number of events, cultural life and summer outdoor experiences compared to Zurich. I attended one of the most outstanding fall festivals here, which is Baloise Session, and my homebase for a night has been the most perfect fit in order to have unforgettable memories.
This is personal. It wasn’t born to be a cooperative article or whatsoever. This was born from sitting two days between thoughts. I feel to share it because I’m sure I’m not alone with this. It’s about my way of seeing things. About travel, being a traveler, a music sharer, maybe a missed musician – being passionate and trying to bring these passions closer to people. It’s about my belief of thinking of being able to take an unicorn out of a banker’s mind. To bring this people closer to a more playful life. Trying to show them that it’s not only shades of grey. Because I see it differently. This post is about me. Bohemian: a word in temporary use for a lot of people. A way of life for others.
Switzerland may not be the tropical island surrounded by deep blue sea as I wish it was, but it has a lot to offer especially in terms of cultural events. For its tiny size compared to other European countries, it offers an extremely wide range of musical happenings all year round. Baloise Session is one of them.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the Amsterdam Dance Event for the first time, which is one of the largest electronic music festivals in the world. This event is not only a networking platform for DJs, it’s also a great place to meet interesting people that are involved with dance music in different ways: producers, writers, photographers, directors and more. I was lucky enough to meet Claudia Assef on my press trip. I found her very fascinating: her knowledge, her way to talk aaand her amazing way to dress colorfully (which I sadly didn’t have the time to shoot). We bonded immediately and had great conversations at dinner about digital work and how electronic music evolved. Also, she is the founder of the first DJ Museum of the world, which I thought was a quite interesting idea, so I decided to do the first interview of my life with her in order to know more about the project.
Fall can be a season full of diversity: days can get still a nice warmth, but staying close to the city can also bring grey or foggy days. To celebrate the start of the colder season, me and my good friend Paulo decided to have a trip up in the mountains and head to Gstaad.
Earlier this year in spring, I had the great opportunity to join one of the most important mountain festivals in Switzerland, which is Zermatt Unplugged (see post here). Just last week, this lovely acoustic singer/songwriter festival was taken from the Swiss alps down to Zurich city for the first time – lucky me, I had the chance to join it again for two days.
I am a wine lover – that’s no secret! I belong to those that even go out for wine chasing on a party, between all the cuba libres and other mixed drinks. And usually, I’m successful.
So that’s more than obvious that I will be attending this year’s Expovina edition – a huge trade show with different exhibitors from around the world.
The Amsterdam Dance Event is more than just connecting all the lovers of electronic music from different countries or a huge networking platform for professionals: despite the musical events, it also offers to the public an insight into art and movies connected with the scene.
bohemianstella 