When it comes to the Wolfgang pack, Salzburg knows the score

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday on January 27 has come and gone, but celebrations will continue in his home town of Salzburg this summer.

The Salzburg Festival has been held in July and August since 1920 and, although the province and city hosts plenty of annual concerts featuring music by its favourite son, this being Mozart's year there'll be little else at the cultural jamboree.

Several British ensembles will be taking advantage of Mozart mania. The London Mozart Players (LMP) will perform a series of Mozart symphonies and concerts on July 27, conducted by James Galway. The orchestra played the festival in 2003, and was immediately invited to return this year.

'Symphony No1 was chosen because it was the symphony Mozart wrote while he was in London,' says LMP managing director Antony Lewis-Crosby. 'Highly appropriate for the London Mozart Players.'

The English Baroque Soloists have been invited to perform at a series of Mozart piano and orchestra concertos on August 28 with founder and conductor John Eliot Gardiner.

Formed in 1978, they have established themselves as one of the great chamber orchestras of the world, particularly for their Mozart interpretations. The Soloists debuted at the 1990 Salzburg Festival, giving three concerts, and have returned numerous times, as well as having toured Vienna and Innsbruck.