KLANGSPUREN SCHWAZ was founded 29 years ago and has since grown into the largest and most successful festival of contemporary music in western Austria. From 2022, programming has been put into the hands of the Italian composer Clara Iannotta and the Austrian musician, composer and ensemble director Christof Dienz. This year’s festival will take place from the 8th-25th of September in Tyrol.
Klangspuren has been held annually in September since its inception and is significantly influenced by the Klangspuren Academy Future Lab with its three different areas: composition, chamber music and ensemble. Moreover, by alternately integrating the music education projects Klangspuren Mobil, Klangspuren Lautstark, and Klangspuren Barfuss into the festival program, by commissioning compositions, and developing new projects, Klangspuren Schwaz also sees itself as a promoter of the contemporary music scene on both a local and international level.
In its 29th edition, Klangspuren presents a new artistic profile: for the first time, a dual leadership curates the program. With the Berlin-based Italian composer Clara Iannotta and the Tyrolean composer and musician Christof Dienz, Klangspuren 2022 is focusing on a broad, diverse program of the new and latest music. The works featured at the 18 festival events in Schwaz, Innsbruck and Rotholz are almost exclusively premieres – with 9 world and 8 Austrian premieres. In addition to the focus on the latest music, an essential aspect of their joint curatorial work is the opening up of Klangspuren to an increasingly cross-genre program that explores the breaking down of boundaries.
Both the opening concert and the finale of Klangspuren 2022 will give the audience the opportunity for a multisensory musical experience at the highest level: the official kick-off of Klangspuren 2022 with Windkraft – Kapelle für Neue Musik conducted by Kasper de Roo in the Silbersaal of the SZentrum in Schwaz will be the Austrian premiere of the music-film-art project “Reich/Richter” (Sep. 8) by the minimal music master Steve Reich, in which the U.S. composer composed music for Gerhard Richter and Corinna Belz’s film “Moving Picture (946-3)”. Live music and visual art meet in an immersive performance and exhibition of impressive intensity. At the end of the festival, the Silver Hall of the SZentrum in Schwaz will once again become a large stage: the video opera “An Index of Metals” (Sep. 25) by the Italian composer Fausto Romitelli, which can be experienced through the interpretation of Phace & Nacho de Paz, Daisy Press, Paulo Pachini, is a classic of recent contemporary music – an opera with a singer and three video walls.
The festival’s opening up to dynamic interweavings and intersections between new music and pop music can be seen, for example, in the concert by the leading new music ensemble Klangforum Wien, performing together with the Austrian avant-garde pop band 5K HD (Sep. 14), or in the collaboration between Jennifer Walshe & Matthew Shlomowitz and Ensemble Nikel (Sep. 22). Guest performers with a new work, commissioned by Klangspuren, are percussionist Martin Brandlmayr (Sep. 11) – member of the avant-garde band Radian, and Daniel Riegler with Studio Dan (Sep. 23). Cross-genre solo programs will also be contributed by the young U.S. composer Natacha Diels (Sep. 20) and the French virtuoso on the electric guitar Julien Desprez (Sep. 10).
In 2022, a new era will begin at Klangspuren in the area of education with the Future Lab, through which successful international musicians will meet young regional music professionals at konsTellation plus. In the Chamber Music Lab, young international chamber music professionals will develop a concert program in a workshop with stars of the chamber music scene. Finally, in the Klangspuren Composers Lab, a mentoring team made up of Chaya Czernowin and Johannes Maria Staud will accompany aspiring international composers on their way to creating new works. All results of the Klangspuren Future Lab will be presented by the young participating musicians themselves or by the ensemble in residence – Riot Ensemble – as part of the festival program.