Keep on reading the festival's foreword by artistic director Nadja Kayali

BALANCE

Thank you for your trust and enthusiasm! Therefore, I look forward all the more to the upcoming concerts, which invite you to cast off on new journeys of musical exploration. Thanks to your financial contributions via the Club Festivalförderung (www.festivalfoerderung.club), two composers and six writers have been commissioned to write works. The new pieces by Nava Hemyari and Peter Ablinger revolve around human rights and the constitution. Barbara Frischmuth, Sabine Gruber, Maja Haderlap, Anna Kim, Ana Marwan, and Sophie Reyer reflect on myths, fairy tales, and hard reality in their new texts, which epitomise the festival motto “Balance” in various ways.

Balance is achieved when two scales come to rest on the same level: when music and literature inspire the soul to take flight and provoke reflection; when familiar traces from the treasure chest of music meet the ear (once again) and new discoveries find their place; when art brings its feminine sway to the scales in a more than visible way.
But my thoughts on the topic of “balance” are also connected to the image of the ancient goddess Justitia, who symbolises justice and law. Both aspects are represented in the program of this year’s festival, most prominently in the concert “To Lviv!” on March 25, in which several important legal scholars and philosophers are interwoven into artistic structures.

Imago Dei 2023 is an invitation to something new but also to revisit familiar treats. For example, it begins with HK Gruber’s global hit “Frankenstein!!”, a tribute to the eminent Austrian composer and chansonnier. Pianist Florian Stemberger presents gems by Johann Sebastian Bach. And on Easter Monday there is a grand finale with George Frideric Handel’s masterpiece “Messiah”.

The Company of Music with Johannes Hiemetsberger accompanies you through the Easter celebration. We have declared our morning concerts – which proved extraordinarily popular last year – a new tradition, and we have prepared a special concert programme for the evening of Good Friday. Messages Quartet, the highly acclaimed Polish string quartet from our previous edition, can be admired as a festival ensemble in no less than four concerts in a variety of works and instrumentations. There is also a reunion with Sakina Teyna and Salah Ammo, who will weave their Kurdish roots into the sounds of the Iranian-Austrian ensemble Kurdophone to perform an imaginary Kurdistan.

A special pleasure for me are the cooperations. With the support of the Polish Institute Vienna, the Leopoldinum Orchestra Wrocław with conductor Ernst Kovacic and singer Agata Zubel will be our guests and present a fascinating programme. I would also like to highlight the coproduction with Salzburg’s Toihaus Theater, which helps us to offer a special art experience even to our youngest listeners (from 1 year!). But the new production “Nebelweich” will certainly be a delight for adults, too.
I look forward to seeing you (again) at the concerts and wish us all a most inspiring festival!

Yours sincerely,
Nadja Kayali

(c) Trifoliata Walter Skokanitsch