Music is an integral part of Austria’s culture and the land is renowned for its world-class musicians and composers. True to reputation, almost all the cities and the countryside towns host at least one music festival a year and many of them have attained worldwide fame. The following are 5 important music festivals in Austria.
Vienna Festival
The Vienna Music Festival is a mega-cultural festival that takes over in the Austrian capital for five or six weeks in May and June every year. It highlights the city’s enthusiasm for culture and its openness.
The festival first took place in 1951 and has since then evolved into one of the leading the cultural festivals of the world and a major attraction of Vienna.
The program traditionally starts with the brilliantly illuminated Vienna City Hall as the background and feature a wide range of multi-lingual cultural events including symphonic concerts, opera, theatre performances, plays, dramas, lectures, installations, film and video shows and exhibitions. The range on offer is also diverse, ranging from amateur to avant-garde.
The calendar usually features around 40 productions with 175 performances and 70 concerts. The festival attracts about 180,000 visitors every year.
Salzburg Festival
The music festival at Salzburg is a major festival of music, featuring opera, concerts and drama at Salzburg town, which is incidentally the birthplace of Mozart. The festival first took place in 1920, and has since been a regular feature for five weeks every summer. Today, the festival has a reputation of one of the most outstanding classical music events.
At the start of the first Salzburg Festival on 22 August 1920, Reinhardt performed Jedermann by Hugo von Hofmannsthalon the steps of Salzburg Cathedral. This practice is now a tradition repeated annually.
Innsbruck Summer Festival
Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps has a rich heritage of music and the city’s summer festival does justice to the legacy. The main components of the summer festival are the
International Festival of Early Music, an eastern Music festival featuring music from 1500 CE to 1750 CE.
The Innsbruck International Choral Festival, a four-day festival of select choruses culminating in a performance of the Mozart Requiem. The participants may bring a performing choir of any size or even sign up individually.
The Ambras Castle Concerts is a series of concerts held every Tuesday in the Spanish Hall of the castle. This tradition started in 1962
The Summer Dance Festival, featuring otsnading daners and dancing companies from all over the world.
Castle Grafenegg Music Festival
The Grafenegg Music Festival is a relatively new music festival. This festival, that takes place on the grounds of the centuries old Grafenegg Castle every August features classical music. The performance of the London Symphony Orchestra is especially famous.
The performances take place at the open-air stage Wolkenturm amidst the lush scenery and the new concert hall.
Opera festival St. Margarethen
St. Margarthen is an old Roman quarry, and since 1996, the venue of an exciting summer festival of music that features popular operas, jazz and pop performed by international stars. The festival attracts 200,000 opera lovers from across the world every year.
The bizarre rock landscape of the quarry actually resembles a monumental opera stage set. An added incentive is the culinary delicacies, especially the outstanding wine, available at the nearby Foyer Park.