Foreword

15th Glatt&Verkehrt Festival

I am one of those people who think—and this is very important to me—that everybody has their origin in a certain place. Ideally we come from a certain place, are rooted in this one place, but our arms are stretching out into the rest of the world and all the different cultures’ ideas are our inspiration.

Eduardo Chillida

Dear audience!

15 years of Glatt&Verkehrt!
This makes one reflect about where we are now and where we are going. Some of those things that could be discovered at Glatt&Verkehrt over the past one and a half decades are now to be found on bigger stages than this festival could ever offer. At the same time, in this connected world, it has become easier to surround oneself with music from the most remote corners of the globe—only one double click away from your living room.
But music’s primary place is where there is room for direct encounters. In traditional music, the ones playing and the ones listening are identical: there is no audience, just participants. If artists and audience—you—like to come here and return here, then this is also thanks to the special ambience of intimacy in the charming, vine-covered Winzer Krems courtyard, which has been a festival venue since the very start. And even more so due to the intimate ambience at the many little cozy places that have joined in over the years: “Gasthäuser” and “Heurigen”, the Göttweig Monastery, churches and chapels… Places in the ancient cultural landscape of the Wachau, where the “world” meets the region, where inspiration may arise.
New places this year: the Heurigen restaurants Denk in Weissenkirchen and Rehrl-Fischer in Rossatz, the Prandtauer Hof in Joching, the Fessl cabin at the Dürnstein ruin. These places provide the adequate setting for four representatives of recent song culture and literature—to decide between the three Sunday afternoon events won’t be easy.
The Glatt&Verkehrt issue no. 15 features 27 musical encounters, more and in more venues than ever before. And yet, the program is all but arbitrary. Each of the five evenings at the festival home base, the Winzer Krems, comes with a clearly defined theme, like the overarching genre of sound poetry and spoken music, from Attwenger to the New York artist Shelley Hirsch, and to the Bregenz Forest. Or trips to far-away countries: to Mexico, to “New” England, to “African blends”, and finally, to three proud Spanish cities.

Are you in on it? A hearty welcome!
Jo Aichinger, Johann Kneihs & Albert Hosp