BAD ISCHL, Austria – Eurovision Song Contest 2014 winner Thomas Neuwirth, better known as Conchita Wurst, was a star attraction in the spa town of Bad Ischl on Jan 20.

Singing three songs, including his Eurovision hit Rise Like A Phoenix, the drag queen helped launch a year-long programme of festivities for the Austrian region of Salzkammergut.

The area comprising 23 municipalities is the first rural region to be anointed one of Europe’s Capitals of Culture (ECOC) for 2024.

Bad Ischl, normally a summer attraction for tourists and famed as the favourite getaway of Emperor Franz Joseph I, pulled out all the stops for the opening.

Austrian music icon Hubert von Goisern, known for fusing traditional folk music elements such as yodelling and accordions with contemporary rock music, composed a new work for a massive choir of 1,000.

The work, incorporating atonality, yodelling and a traditional brass ensemble, was the opening act at Kurpark Bad Ischl. Residents and visitors began trickling in as early as 3.30pm for the 5pm ceremony.

High art sat comfortably next to low as the programme concluded with Austrian choreographer Doris Uhlich’s Powder Dance. A body-diverse ensemble, including two dancers in wheelchairs, performed naked despite temperatures dipping to minus 4 deg C.

The approximately 5,500-strong crowd rewarded them with some of the loudest cheers of the evening.

The opening ceremony, broadcast live on Austrian television, was accompanied by art installations dotted around the town. There was also a staging of Oscar Straus’ operetta A Woman Who Knows What She Wants as well as a festival club night that offered throbbing live dance music by Austrian acts.

Salzkammergut shares the ECOC title with Estonia’s Tartu and Norway’s Bode in 2024.

The ECOC initiative, launched by the European Union in 1985, aims to highlight the richness and diversity of cultures in Europe. Named cities offer a year-long programme of arts and culture activities.

Salzkammergut has programmed more than 300 projects on a budget of €30 million (S$43.8 million).

Highlights in 2024 include celebrations of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner’s 200th birth anniversary, the reopening of composer Franz Lehar’s newly restored holiday villa in Bad Ischl, and Klassik am Dom Linz, a concert series at the New Cathedral in the city of Linz which will feature Norah Jones, Placido Domingo and David Garrett.

•  The writer is in Austria at the invitation of the Austrian National Tourist Office.