Performances will involve over 1,500 participants and will take place at several venues in the city, including the Music Academy, the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, the Croatian National Theatre, the Museum of Arts and Crafts, and the French Pavilion.
The opening ceremony will be held in the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall and will feature a performance by the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the conductor Pierre-Andre Valade. Also performing will be the famous saxophonists Branford Marsalis, Arno Bornkamp, Claude Delangle, Timothy McAllister and Antonio Garcia Jorge.
The congress will close with a large open-air concert at Lake Bundek where performances will be given by the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra led by the conductor Quentin Hindley and by many soloists from around the world, including Otis Murphy, Pawel Gusnar, Nobuya Sugawa and Nikola Fabijanic. The concert will end with a collective performance by all 400 saxophonists.
The World Saxophone Congress is held every three years in a different country. The first one took place in Chicago in 1969.