Stars in the year 2025

Salzkammergut Festival Weeks: “No matter where, baby!”

Unbeatable duo: Maria Happel and Michael Niavarani

(Bild: Lalo Jodelbauer)

The Salzkammergut Festival Weeks, which are based in Gmunden, may not have been "the cultural capital" themselves, but they were eagerly involved in the major event: With 40,000 visitors this year, a new record was set. The next highlights will be brought to Gmunden - and Ischl - in spring 2025.

Cooperation is the key to success, according to Johanna Mitterbauer, Managing Director of the Salzkammergut Festival Weeks: "This has shown in the Capital of Culture region how strongly art and culture can create community." Interest has been enormous in recent months, with the year-round festival increasing the number of visitors from 30,000 (2023) to 40,000. 

In order to be able to maintain this even in a time of economic recession, the festival is relying not only on the public sector, but also on 60 sponsors: "We have already started talks," says Mitterbauer, who hopes to be able to maintain the 2025 budget of just under 2 million euros.

New venues for the festival weeks
The collaboration with Ischl has also led to the creation of new performance venues, which the festival hopes to return to in 2025. For example, two particularly eloquent audience favorites will be throwing verbal pies at the Kongress & Theaterhaus: Maria Happel meets Michael Niavarani. The evening is called "Trost der Kunst" (February 22nd) and will be a crash tour between Goethe and Peter Alexander, Hamlet and humorous wags. Karin Bergmann, head of theater at the Salzkammergut Festwochen, will host the event.

The festival has borrowed the annual motto "No matter where, baby" from author Christoph Ransmayr. He opens his new book, which bears this very title, at the Stadttheater Gmunden, accompanied by the exceptional guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel (May 25). 

Janoska Ensemble

(Bild: Andreas H. Bitesnich)

Unique concert highlights in summer
In addition to the traditional "Hausmusik-Roas" by Franz Welser-Möst, there are other theater and concert evenings on the program in the first half of the year, including Philharmonix - The Vienna Berlin Music Club (15 January, Laakirchen); a puppet show by Nikolaus Habjan takes us into the darkest chapters of Austrian history (6 February, Laakirchen). The Janoska Ensemble reinterprets Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" (March 20) in the newly renovated Stadttheater Gmunden. Also on the program: a concert by the St. Florian Boys' Choir on 4 April in the Gmunden parish church.

Boney M come to Gmunden

(Bild: Donavon-Nelson-Ltd)

Preview of the summer
Boney M. will be celebrating 50 years of disco history next year with an exclusive open-air concert in Toscanapark in Gmunden. Original member Maizie Williams will be rocking Lake Traunsee with the current Boney M. line-up on August 2, as we have already reported. And now it is also certain: Herbert Pixner, the "Jimi Hendrix of folk music", will be performing in the Gmunden sports hall on October 19.