Hinterhäuser wins jury’s top prize at Austrian music theatre awards

Former Salzburg Festival director Markus Hinterhäuser will receive the Grand Jury Prize at the Austrian Music Theatre Prize, ORF reports. The jury said he had decisively shaped and advanced music theatre in Austria.

Hinterhäuser is being honoured for his work as a pianist, festival director and cultural manager. The award ceremony will take place on September 8 at Votivkirche, a church in Vienna, according to an announcement.

“Markus Hinterhäuser not only shaped music theatre, but also repeatedly encouraged people to think beyond their own limits,” the jury said in its citation. It praised his “courage to embrace the unusual”, his programming vision and his ability to recognise exceptional artists. These qualities had created new spaces for encounters, debate and artistic experience, the citation said.

Hinterhäuser studied piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and at the Mozarteum University Salzburg.

The Salzburg Festival parted ways with him in March after prolonged discussions about his leadership style and decisions made independently.

Hinterhäuser received the Trophée Radio Classique in Paris in February 2024 for his artistic direction of the Salzburg Festival. He also received the award for Best Production of the Year 2024 at the OPER! awards for Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production of Mieczysław Weinberg’s The Idiot. In December 2024, then Salzburg governor Wilfried Haslauer awarded him the State of Salzburg’s Decoration of Honour.