Wienerwald festival brings concerts into the forest

The wienerwald festival will open its fourth edition on Saturday, bringing Renaissance and Baroque music together with Romantic music, crossover performances and dance at venues ranging from a secluded forest clearing to an Art Nouveau theatre, ORF reports. The programme runs until October 3 and includes several new formats.

Organisers say the festival has become a fixture of the autumn cultural season within four years. While its founders were still looking for suitable venues in 2023, municipalities and event locations now approach the festival themselves.

The programme deliberately avoids a single genre or fixed concert format. Its common thread is a commitment to quality and the question of which music has the strongest effect in which setting. The range extends from early music and Romantic chamber music to dance, crossover performances and family events.

When the journey becomes part of the concert

At the wienerwald festival, a concert does not begin with the first note. Walking routes, strolls and deliberately chosen paths to the venues have been part of the concept since the first edition. Organisers say nature should be more than a decorative backdrop: it prepares audiences for what follows, creates distance from everyday life and can change how the music is perceived.

Two new venues in Tullnerbach highlight this approach. The festival team chose the simple chapel at the Norbertinum for its intimate atmosphere and unusual acoustics. The experience of nature is even more direct at the Sandling forest clearing in the Irenental, hidden on the edge of the Vienna Woods core zone.

This year’s programme includes a brass trio featuring Albert Wieder, Thomas Gansch and Leonhard Paul, whose musical work extends well beyond Austria. They will be joined by young ensembles and other artistic discoveries. Organisers say supporting young cultural professionals has been part of the festival’s identity from the beginning.

New ways to experience music

The festival is also seeking to reach people who have had little contact with classical music. The Bühne der Zukunft format at the Hermesvilla will again offer two free concerts in cooperation with the Wien Museum. Organisers say the events sold out quickly in previous years.

A new format called Hautnah at the theatre on the Otto Wagner grounds will bring audiences particularly close to the performers. The organisers say visitors will be able to hear the musicians breathing rather than watching them from a distant row in a large concert hall.

New format focuses on women composers

The new Klassisch Frau open call will create a dedicated concert format focused on women composers and musicians perceived as women. The festival is seeking an established ensemble of no more than five such performers to develop a programme exclusively featuring works by women composers for the 2027 edition.

The selected ensemble will also premiere a commissioned composition written for the festival by Julia Lacherstorfer. Applications are open until October 15, 2026, and the selected programme will be performed on October 1 or 2, 2027.

Organisers say women conductors and, in some cases, women composers are now appearing in the programmes of major institutions, but that equal representation remains a long way off.