Carinthian Summer

Moving festival for music, literature and discourse

CS director Nadja Kayali (Bild: Sascha Osaka)

Carinthian Summer "moves" from July 3 to August 3 (and 23) in line with the motto of freedom, light and hope, creating multi-layered and open-minded spaces for encounters with a variety of genres and styles. Among other things, "Drumherumhören" offers something new as a festival within a festival. 

Its inaugural season doubled the number of visitors last year. The energy, joy and emphatically personal touch with which CS director Nadja Kayali revived the former flagship festival, realigned it and made it a focal point for a wide range of target groups and age groups, is being continued this year in terms of programming.

For her, the art of organizing a festival lies in "connecting the seemingly divisive, making space for diversity, presenting the familiar in an exciting way and whetting the appetite for the new and unknown." Here is a look at some (of many) highlights.

Zöglinge" comes across as a "literary sensation with political explosiveness". A text by the multi-award-winning Russian theater director, poet and feminist Zhenya Berkovich - sentenced to six years in a penal camp in Moscow. The manuscript was smuggled out of prison, the CS has had it exclusively translated and is launching the fable as an exquisite testimony to disobedience (twice) in Carinthian. New are two new festival overtures with top-class musicians in the spirit of light and freedom (Basel Chamber Orchestra under Giovanni Antonini, TrioVanBeethoven), which culminate in HK Gruber's FINTango opening concert at the Congress Center Villach (July 5), including the world premiere of the same name. The brilliant young cellist Julia Hagen combines tradition with innovation as Festival Artist in three concerts.

The ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra is also a festival orchestra this year with three major performances, including the special farewell concert (August 23) for chief conductor Marin Alsop.

The Eliot Quartet (with all 15 of Shostakovich's string quartets), a new "festival within the festival", will be performing "Listening Around" (July 26 - August 2), with music, readings, talks, walks, culinary delights . . . revolving around them. Free morning concerts in the Evangelical Church in Stadtpark will bring CS commissioned texts on "Hope" to the fore.

Big names include pianist and honorary member Rudolf Buchbinder, actor and bestselling author Joachim Meyerhoff and Birgit Minichmayr, Georg Nigl and Olga Pashchenko, music hikes and musical walks open up natural spaces, the Kinder.Musik.Labor playfully discovers, bands of different styles and cultures build bridges. Info & program: carinthischersommer.at