Yet again, this year’s edition of “Moving Sounds” offers selected local musicians the opportunity to present themselves to an American audience in New York. The festival organized by the ACFNY – Austrian Cultural Forum New York (this year celebrating its 10th anniversary), mica – music austria and the Argento New Music Project will take place from the 13th – 15th September and focus on the concept of “sound” and its impact on music.
The U.S. indeed has a keen interest in Austrian art and music activities, proven by the extensive media coverage on the festival, including the renowned New York Times, which published a detailed report on last year’s festival in their culture section.
As the festival’s name already implies, the focal point of the festival is based on the analysis of complex sound aspects, which come in different forms and approaches, different music processes and various recipients’ perceptions. Each year Austrian music creators and their American peers are encouraged to create and implement their vision of sound and explore its impact on the environment in New York.
“Moving Sounds” is a festival that has committed itself to high quality standards from the very beginning. The intention is to paint a picture of the Austrian music and art scene, which goes beyond the usual clichés of Mozart and Strauss. The presented works and pieces build the gap between contemporary, avant-garde, electronic music and sound experiments with the spatial environment.
This year the three-day festival will be kicked off with a concert by the New York Mivos Quartet, which will perform compositions by Reiko Fueting and Carl Christian Bettendorf. Subsequently, Christian Meyer, director of the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna, and the Tyrolean jazz trumpeter Franz Hackl will share Schönberg’s music and the idea of avant-garde in a musical reading. The second day includes concerts by the New York-based ensemble mise-en and the American composer and electronic artist Annie Gosfield. The final day is completely devoted to contemporary music from Austria. Starting the program, the Jack Quartet from the U.S. will perform the works Paramyth (String quartet 1) by Clemens Gadenstätter and String Quartet No. 5 by Georg Friedrich Haas, after that the Viennese electronic veteran Bernhard Fleischmann will perform the world premiere of a piece he composed especially for this concert event.
Michael Ternai (translated from German)
Further information and program details: ACFNY – Moving Sounds Festival 2012