Dear friends, from now on I'll write my monthly blog and also in a month I'll start to upload my LIVE performances to iTunes, 1 track every month, available for download! Stay tuned!
Why did I decide to organize a concert series?
I have been asked frequently why I wanted to do it. The concert calendar in Vienna is already filled to the brim, I am only 23, and, besides, I have very much keeping me quite busy with my own career…
But the experience of organizing a series has proven invaluable in so many respects.
First, simply to understand how to build a concert from the inside-out has taught me so much about my industry and how to move forward within it. With only a modest budget, we managed to organize 13 evenings in the Bank Austria Salon, with two concerts each night, also showcasing art exhibitions and collaborative performance art during the music.
I had a fantastic lineup of artists throughout the season. And as an artist, I also understand how demanding we artists can be, and how hard the work of an artistic director is. But even with a team of wonderful colleagues, it can be challenging to account for the unique needs of each individual performer.
My biggest lesson from all this is that the simpler and easier you are to work with, the more others will want to work with you. This is what our colleagues and artistic organizers appreciate.
But I did not organize this series only to learn how to improve my career. It represents an artistic mission, as well.
The music scene in Vienna remains outdated. The big halls rotate through only a small roster of blue-chip artists, and the programs are still quite conservative and repetitive. People come to concerts, sit, snore, sneeze, cough, have a hurried and overpriced drink in a hurry in the intermission, leave immediately after it ends, and then repeat the ritual.
I am inspired to create a new and innovative concept.
Not only will our concertgoers experience great and profound music-making, but they will experience it in a wholly different context. Our concerts are social occasions, where people come together to spend time with each other along with the music itself. So the intermission is longer, and the hall and reception remain open after the main concert has ended, transforming into a lounge. With a more intimate and relaxed jazz or pop concert, people can continue socializing together over refreshments and more music, long after a traditional hall would have kicked them out into separate groups and forced them to find another way to continue their Friday night. And this makes the evening more accessible to those who are not experienced classical music concertgoers, as well.
In the end, we listen to great music because we want to, not because we have to. Not because some huge and expensive PR campaign told us to get excited about an average performer, not because all your friends and neighbors are going, and not because you have to show up to the benediction.
And that is why I have organized Friday Nights with Yury Revich.
We are looking for new cooperations and partners, and I hope to welcome you in our 2016 season!
THANK YOU TO OUR TEAM, which made it possible:
Krystian Nowakowsky (NO-TE)
Mia Papaethimiou (Artistic Curator)
Natalie Neubauer (Event Organizer)
Maximilian Brunner (Photography)
Arabella Fenyves (Moderation)
Oleg Dergilev (Audio Recording)
Jutta Schimanko (Public Relations)
Wolfgang Lamprecht
Bank Austria Salon