Carinthian Summer Opening – kaernten.ORF.at

Music, literature and discourse are at the heart of the Carinthia Summer: 46 events, concerts, discussions and readings will be held between July 6 and August 4. This is the first season for the new director Nadia Kayali. She has given the festival a kind of general overhaul and sharpened its image.

Opening with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna

The Carinthian summer also has a clear focus on women. At the opening concert on Saturday with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna (RSO), Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro conducted. The programme included romantic composers and a world premiere by Hannah Eisendl. At the opening, Nadia Kayali said in a live interview in Carinthia Today: “I am really pleased that we are starting this festival with a party, with 500 guests of honour and the Federal President, who opened our festival.”

“I love the festival programming,” Kayali said. “I think it’s great that I now live here in Carinthia and can spend this Carinthian summer in Carinthia.” She said: “I’ve condensed the Carinthian summer into one month.” “That’s why we play every day from July 6 to August 4, and there’s always something new to discover. And things have a connection to each other, an inner arc, and that’s what matters.”

Director: “There's been a lot of positive feedback.”

The new director said she had received a lot of sympathy in Carinthia and a lot of positive feedback, “which makes me very happy and encourages me to continue in the direction I started. Visitors should not be frightened by the wonderful history of music.” Kayali, but simply: “Today many people will hear something completely new. For example, the Louise Farrenck Symphony No. 3. They don’t even know that this composer exists and that this symphony exists. So what? We are listening to wonderful music.”

For visitors, it’s simply about opening up and experiencing something, and letting it come to them, as Kayali said: “Opening up to the music and letting new things come to you. And I think when you do that, it’s no longer about good or bad. Then we move into another dimension.”

Believe in the power of music

The director pointed out that music should also be understood as something political: “Music has the power to change the world. That’s what we saw in Portugal on April 25, 1974. The Carnation Song ignited the Portuguese Revolution and put this country, which had been under fascist authoritarian rule, on the path to democracy. And I believe in that too, in the power of music.

In his opening speech, Federal President Van der Bellen said that art opens up worlds, but “you also have to give people the opportunity to do so”. In this context, he positively emphasized that many events during the Carinthian summer can be attended with free admission: “This is very unusual”. State Governor Peter Kaiser (SPÖ) described art and culture as “a bulwark of our liberal democracy”: “Art is not only free, it makes an important contribution to freedom and the transition to freedom.”