The city of Leshan, the city with the largest and tallest stone buddha in the world and the Region of our AME Headquarter, the Salzkammergut are awarded a UNESCO Heritage. So the mayors of these cities decided to begin of a friendship between Leshan and the cities of our region. The mayor of Leshan/China, Zhang Tong, came to visit our AME Headquarter with a high-profile delegation of leading politicians from his city. He was impressed by the quality of our international AME Headquarter especially the musical possibilities. In his speech he admired the idea of AME to teach the students in music and culture with the related arts like painting, literature and architecture. He also was impressed by the beautiful and varied programs of the AME Summer and Winter camps especially the teaching of Austrian Music and culture in the nice landscape of the Salzkammergut with exciting sport and cultural activities. He also was impressed by the intercultural AME Project: „Scenes of childhood“ between students of China and the AME Headqaurter. The mayors of Bad Goisern, Hallstatt and Obertraun accompanied him by visiting the teaching rooms of the AME Headquarter. The region of the Salzkammergut will start a cultural partnership with the city of Leshan, one part of this will be the pedagogic and cultural exchange of music education between the AME and schools in Leshan. For the mayors in our region, the mayor of Leshan brought a special Buddha figure as a gift, which was put up in the Dachstein Mountains, where the AME organize the famous ice cave concerts and the special summer program “Sound of Mountains.”
