In the 23rd year of its existence the INTERNATIONAL ACCORDION FESTIVAL (Feb. 19th. – Mar. 20th, 2022) offers a month-long program of exciting artists at renowned Viennese venues, showcasing the accordion and its multitude of artistic facets.
The Accordion Festival Vienna last took place as planned in its entirety in 2019. Since then, although carefully structured and planned as usual, it fell victim to the pandemic, like just about everybody. It speaks for the tireless commitment of Friedl Preisl and Franziska Hatz, who hold the programmatic threads of the festival in their hands, that they went unwaveringly into the planning for 2022, taking on (as far as possible) scheduled concerts from 2021 – ultimately, offering the artists some prospects and security in these challenging times.
So it is certainly more than legitimate to let the great Astor Piazzolla live up to his artistic glory even one year after his 100th birthday, after all, his impact on accordion music and compositional accordion literature remains unchanged. Therefore, Klaus Paier (opening gala 2, Feb. 20, in duo with Florian Dohrmann and in trio with Asja Valcic and Gerald Preinfalk, Lorely Saal), Christian Bakanic (with his Trio Infernal and singer Paula Barembuem, Feb. 22, Porgy & Bess) and the Groovin’ Tango Quintett (Feb. 24, Ehrbar Saal) will all play their parts in the program “100 + 1 years of Piazzolla” at the festival.
In the course of the festival 2022, there will be accordion music from all 9 federal states of Austria. On the one hand, this makes the domestic distribution and artistic diversity of the instrument visible and audible at the heart of the festival, and on the other, it takes into account the fact that it is difficult to get touring international artists to Vienna with reliable planning. Nevertheless, the level of artists performing at the accordion festival is, in any case, cosmopolitan, regardless of their origin and place of residence.
Additionally, the festival welcomes Uaine from Ireland and Airboxes from Belgium (Mar. 14, Schutzhaus Zukunft, 22nd Guiness Celtic Spring Tour 2022), Jean-Louis Martinier and Kevin Seddiki from France (Mar. 17, Sargfabrik). Not to mention, the third closing gala on Mar. 20 at the Metropol, which is all about Italian music, with the wonderful Riccardo Tesi and Banditaliana.
Attwenger, Großmütterchen Hatz, Otto Lechner, Paul Schuberth, Tini Trampler & Playbackdolls, Troi, the Wiener Tschuschenkapelle and many more make the 23rd International Accordion Festival Vienna a consistently high-class pleasure. The silent film matinee, with live soundtracks of selected silent films every Sunday in the Filmcasino and various workshops as a supporting program round off the rich offer of the festival.
Translated by Arianna Fleur Alfreds from the German original text by Rainer Krispel.