Weyer – Festival of Literature and Music: Voice and Word United in Song

From Friday 14 to Sunday 16 October, Wire will be the stage for a new festival of literature and music. The KlangRede Festival program was coordinated by bookseller, author Petra Hartlieb and soprano Evelyn Schörkhuber, who also developed the idea for the festival and organized it with Jeunesse, a non-profit organization promoting young artists from raised baptism.

Petra Hartlieb grew up in Troon near Linz, studied history and psychology in Vienna and went to Hamburg in 1999, where she worked as a journalist and literary critic. In 2004 she and her husband returned to Vienna and took over the management of a traditional bookstore in Währing, which they now run as “Hartliebs Bücher”. Hartlieb addressed this experience in the 2014 novel “My Wonderful Bookstore” published by DuMont.

Hartlieb has also published a series of crime novels, jointly with Berlin writer Klaus Ulrich Bielefeld, and a four-part cycle of historical novels about turn-of-century Vienna. The author and bookseller’s autobiography relates to Fire that her father was born in Javelins and spent several summers in the area during her childhood and youth.

Evelyn Schörkhuber grew up in Weyer and was already deeply involved in classical music and singing during her childhood and youth. Later she studied solo singing in Vienna and theater performance in Spain. Engagements followed, among others, at Chamber Opera and New Opera in Vienna as well as at Mörbisch and Reinsberg. Schörkhuber began teaching singing in 2013 and today offers master classes all over the world. Last summer she was the Artistic Director of the Austrian Summer Music Festival in Wire, which was attended by children and young people from all over the world.

Hartlieb and Schorchober have known each other for several years and are neighbors in Vienna. “We’ve always wanted to go to Wire together, originally with my father, who then passed away in 2021,” Hartlieb says. “Then I decided to travel to Weyer in memory of my father and fell in love with the area all over again.”

A program from Schubert for singer-songwriter

Soon the idea of ​​holding a festival together appeared in Weyer, which should combine the two passions – music and literature. “I love Schubert and Leider! Schurkhuber mentions that every corner of Weyer reminds me of Schubert,” sound and word are incredibly important in false singing. Schubert was the beginning of this song culture, and from there comes the singer-songwriter personality.”

The curators have also designed the festival program according to these views, which draws an arc from contemporary songs to Schubert and also deals with the relationship between urban and rural areas. “Of course you can also visit the individual events — but we like lots of guests spending the whole weekend,” Hartlieb says. “It’s a great place for a weekend getaway in Weyer, and if someone contacts us, we’d be happy to help you find a room.”