Light the candles and raise your champagne glasses, it's an anniversary for Prague Spring — 60 years since Rafael Kubelík led the Czech Philharmonic in the first-ever concert of what has become one of the world's most prestigious classical music festivals. The celebration features a wealth of special programs incorporating this year's other major anniversary figures, Mozart and Shostakovich.

Closer to home, Prague Spring is also paying tribute to Slovak music with a great lineup of visiting stars, headlined by world-class soprano Edita Gruberová, making her inaugural Prague Spring appearance. Other Slovak singers are sprinkled throughout the festival, along with two of the country's top chamber ensembles, Cappella Istropolitana and the Moyzes Quartet. The Slovak Philharmonic comes to town with a world premiere by Slovak composer ªubica Salomon Čekovská, who will be making an earlier appearance at the festival playing piano in a dance band, the Bratislava Hot Serenaders.

Mozart and Shostakovich run throughout the entire festival, sometimes jarringly so; one program segues from a Mozart piano concerto to Shostakovich's Babi-Yar symphony (No. 13). But the performers are uniformly excellent, starting with a special appearance by the Vienna Philhamonic playing Mozart's Prague symphony. Zubin Mehta, originally scheduled to conduct, has health problems and will be replaced by veteran Austrian conductor Leopold Hager.

Other Mozart highlights include five of his best-known piano concertos performed by stars such as Emanuel Ax, Ivan Moravec and Marián Lapšanský, and major works such as the Jupiter symphony and the Requiem. But some of the minor pieces may be even more interesting to hear. Mozart's last finished work, for example, the Clarinet Concerto in A major, will be performed by American virtuoso Charles Neidich on the basset horn, the instrument for which the piece was originally composed.

Shostakovich gets a fine airing, with his son Maxim leading the Prague Symphony Orchestra in Symphony No. 5 and Cello Concert No. 1, featuring soloist Jiří Bartá. A variety of Czech and Slovak groups will offer their interpretations of Shostakovich, though it will be hard to surpass the Russian offerings: the St. Petersburg Chamber Soloists doing a pair of piano quintets, and the Russian National Orchestra doing Violin Concert No. 1 (paired with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition).

Shostakovich is only one of many 20th-century composers featured in this year's festival. Arnold Schoenberg gets an entire evening with a showcase presentation of his mammoth Gurre-Lieder, with Zdeněk Mácal leading the Czech Philharmonic and an all-star cast of singers that includes local favorites Eva Urbanová and Dagmar Pecková. Shoenberg is also on the program of Ensemble Contemporain, the fine French ensemble founded by Pierre Boulez. The three morning concerts (on successive Saturdays at HAMU) offer a wide-ranging selection of modern composers (Britten, Ligeti, Massenet), and contemporary Czech, Japanese and British composers are featured throughout the festival.

Prague Spring extends its reach to Terezín this year, where a special Sunday afternoon program titled "Defiant Requiem" promises a once-in-a-lifetime experience. American conductor Murray Sidlin will lead an orchestra, choir and soloists from Catholic University in Washington, D.C., in a performance of Verdi's Requiem, which was performed by camp inmates in 1943. The program includes videotaped testimonies of people who were imprisoned at the camp and participated in the original performance.

In truth, there's something special about almost every day of Prague Spring. What you choose to see is a matter of taste and, unfortunately, ticket availability, as many of the high-profile performances sell out quickly. But don't be deterred. Often some of the sweetest moments of the festival are the smaller concerts or overlooked events, like the nocturnos at the Rudolfinum, or chamber concerts at venues like Bertramka and the Czech National Bank hall.