Kantorei Siegen Bach-Chor Siegen Sängerkreis Siegerland Museums The main centre of art in Siegen are the Museum for Contemporary Art and the Haus Seel – city gallery. The Siegerland Museum is dedicated to regional history. The Oranienstraße House, built at 1900 in the Italian country house style, is attached to the Siegerland Museum since 1993 as an exhibit forum. There is a varied program of temporary exhibitions of all kinds, from archaeological excavations to contemporary avant-garde art. Poet and author readings are also part of the program, such as classic concerts. In Geisweid is found the Beatles Home Museum, run by Harold Krämer. According to the 2000 Guinness Book of Records, the 27 m² museum is the smallest public museum in the world devoted to the four Liverpudlian musicians. The collection holds more than 17,000 recordings, souvenirs, film posters, and autographs and other memorabilia. Regular events Early in the year: SILA (Siegerlandausstellung – Siegerland Exhibition), even-numbered years only March to November, first Saturday in each month: Flea market in Siegen-Geisweid (since 1970), no new goods June to August: "Mittwochs in" different bands every Wednesday in Siegen-Weidenau June: Johannimarkt, a fair held for some 400 years June/July: Siegener Sommerfestival, plays, cabaret, theatre, music and cinema since about 1990. (In 2006, instead of the traditional summer festival, a World Cup festival was held) July: Stadtfest (City Festival), even-numbered years only July: Rubensfest, odd-numbered years only August: Siegen Open-Air Cinema August: Christopher Street Day (CSD), since 2000 August: Siegtal-Pur All streets only opened for bikes (the HTS (local Motorway) too) Summer: Street Festival at the Corn Market October: 2nd Sunday: Bürgerfest Geisweid November: Geisweider Adventsmarkt, since about 1985 December: Christmas market, since about 1980 Dialect The city and its surrounding region speak in addition to standard German also have a characteristic local dialect: Siegerländisch. Tales and legends The Dilldappe is an old mythical creature from the Siegerland. It lives mainly in the Siegerland Hauberg (coöperatively managed woodlots). Early in the 1980s, the writer and cartoonist Matthias Kringe first published a calendar about the creature, written in the local dialect of German. The Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen The Rubens Prize of the City of Siegen, founded in 1955, is awarded every five years to a painter or graphic artist whose life's work has been groundbreaking on the European stage. The title recalls the painter-diplomat Peter Paul Rubens, who expressed in his