Bayreuth is synonymous with the annual month-long summer music festival dedicated exclusively to the works of Richard Wagner (1813-1883), a vitriolic anti-semite and the favourite composer of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
But running almost parallel with the legendary festival is a smaller independent one, aimed at searching out "the stars of tomorrow" from promising young students all over the world.
And this year's Young Artists' Festival, the 53rd since its inception in 1950, will bring together a group of Israeli and Palestinian musicians, painters and dancers in what the festival's organisers hope will provide "a small step" in promoting political and cultural dialogue between the two peoples.
Between August 3-30, six young Israelis and seven young Palestinians will live, rehearse and make music side by side here in Bayreuth, high temple of the Wagner cult, together with other talented youngsters from around the world.
"Political work has traditionally been one the main focuses of the festival," spokeswoman Daniela Knoebl said.
"Clearly, we can't solve the situation on our own. But what we can do is practice the politics of small steps. If 10 Israelis and Palestinians come away from here with positive experiences and go home and tell their friends and family about it, then we're making our own modest contribution. Music and art is a universal language, understood by everyone, no matter what race or skin-colour," Knoebl said.
The idea is not dissimilar to Argentinian-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim's higher-profile West-Eastern Divan project, which regularly brings together Israeli and Palestinian musicians in a full-scale symphony orchestra.
But here in Bayreuth, the youngsters are integrated into a wider group of around 350 musicians from a whole range of different countries, and can take part in workshops and courses on subjects ranging from symphony orchestra to chamber music, composition, music theatre, contemporary dance, literature, music criticism and cultural management.
The so-called "West-Eastern Dialogue" was first integrated into the Young Artists' Festival two years ago, to great success.
And while the political situation did not allow it to be repeated in 2002, it is back on the programme again this year -- with the explicit and enthusiastic blessing of the German Foreign Office -- and will be headed by Hungarian cellist Josef Schwab and Palestinian singer, composer and Oud virtuoso Marwan Abado.
Abado and Austrian composer Franz Hautzinger are arranging one of Abado's works for a combination of western orchestral instruments and traditional Arab instruments, such as the Oud, Qanoun and Buzuq, for performance at the festival in a fusion of western and middle-eastern styles.
Interest in the Young Artists' Festival as a whole is strong and the number of applications to take part was more than double 350 places available, Knoebl said.
That was due not only to the magical name of Bayreuth, but also to the high quality of the festival itself, where top-name conductors, instrumentalists and tutors coach and groom the youngsters for future careers in the arts.
Even the big stars of the Bayreuth Festival, such as conductors Christian Thielemann and Adam Fischer, have accepted invitations to work here.
But it's not all work and no play.
And on top of an intensive work schedule, extra-curricular activities are also organised for the youngsters, from trips in and around Bayreuth, to a disco evening and a beer garden. And perhaps most importantly, participants get to attend one of the performances on Wagner's famed Green Hill.
"That's a big treat for everyone, not having to wait 14 years for a ticket like everybody else," Knoebl said.
Blair blasts Britons over Iraq war