This summer, almost in every emerging neighborhood in Leipzig, Germany the streets were buzzing of artists and students. Early 20th-century cinema turned intimate music hall, Mohna. Outside, on Wolfgang-Heinze-Strasse, three heavily pierced student-types in studded jackets were hurrying toward Conne Island, one of Leipzig’s better-known music venues. Therefore, Leipzig does call itself the City of Music.

This year is the 325th anniversary of Bach’s birth, and Leipzig is celebrating with concerts, festivals and the reopening of the newly designed Bach Museum. In the last two years, this city of about half a million residents — many of them students at the 600-year-old University of Leipzig — is where some of the most innovative house and techno music is being created.

The music scene there is as good as those in other, bigger cities like Cologne or Berlin, but everyone knows each other. It’s not commercial. It seems the music scene there is still very untouched by cynicism and speculation and people really just want to enjoy good live music.

But only in recent years has Leipzig become a desirable place to live and visit. A few decades ago, it was a city to be avoided: a polluted town known mostly for its book publishing industry and the trade fairs that have been held there since the Middle Ages. Now the surplus of abandoned factory buildings, which had produced mechanical parts for products like watches and cars, and textiles, is a boon, attracting creative entrepreneurs, artists and musicians who have reclaimed the old spaces. There’s an underground party or event in an abandoned factory or building every weekend. Getting there: Leipzig is just over an hour from Berlin by train. Tickets are about 43 euros, or $52 at $1.20 to the euro.