Cool or free, classic or modern, swing or Dixieland: in the North Rhine-Westphalian city of Düsseldorf , jazz is king. You'd expect nothing less from the Düsseldorf Jazz Rally, which offers a musical discovery tour of all forms of jazz and is traditionally held at Whitsun.

The Fête de la Musique – the European & Worldwide Music Day – is an annual festival held on 21 June, the start of summer. It transforms cities around the globe into theatres of enchantment and magical sounds.

Das FEST music festival in Karlsruhe is one of Germany's biggest open-air events, attracting over 200,000 visitors. It has been held every year in late July since 1985 – on the last weekend before the start of the school holidays in Baden-Württemberg.

One of the nicest legacies of the former East Germany's cultural calendar is the International Dixieland Festival in Dresden , which has taken place in the second week in May every year since 1971. It is now Germany's oldest old-time jazz festival and a firm fixture in the European scene. For eight days and seven nights, the capital of Saxony becomes Swingin' Dresden and draws around half a million jazz fans to the city.

Word has got around that Bochum's 'Bermuda triangle' of bars and clubs is the party capital of the Ruhr at any time of year. But when the city at the heart of North Rhine-Westphalia plays host to Bochum Total, one of Europe's leading music festivals, the party atmosphere reaches fever pitch.

You might see stars dancing before your eyes after three days at the SonneMondSterne (Sun, Moon and Stars) Festival! SonneMondSterne, SMS for short, is one of the biggest open-air festivals for electronic dance music in Europe. It takes place every year on the second weekend in August at the beautiful Bleiloch reservoir near Saalburg-Ebersdorf in Thuringia .