Mourning for Josef “Jo” Aichinger 1955-2021

The longstanding artistic director of the Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche and the Glatt & Verkehrt festival died today after a serious illness.

Krems a.d.Donau (OTS) – “I have always looked for music that I don’t understand straight away, from which I learn something new.” (Jo Aichinger)

It is with great sadness that we, the team of the Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche and the Glatt & Verkehrt festival, announce the death of our long-time artistic director Josef “Jo” Aichinger.

Since the 1990s, Jo Aichinger has played a decisive role in shaping the Kremser, Lower Austrian and Austrian art and culture scene, which is now so lively and internationally recognized, this “cosmos of creative minds” (Michael Horowitz, Kurier 2017).

Born in Bad Aussee in 1955 and raised in Fels am Wagram, the trained technician came to the curation of advanced music events as an autodidact and great lover. It all started with free jazz. In the early 1980s he founded the Thürnthal jazz club and later the Tulln art workshop. While working on the state capital planning, he developed the “New Impressions” festival in the St. Pölten synagogue. As the technical director of the Kunsthalle Krems, Jo Aichinger was commissioned by founding director Wolfgang Denk in 1992 to set up a cross-disciplinary concert program that included the secularized Minorite Church in Krems-Stein. This was followed by a legendary four-day concert event with La Monte Young, one of the most influential representatives of minimal music, and the light artist Marianne Zazeela. In 1995, on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the city of Krems, Aichinger organized a very successful accordion festival that laid the foundation for the Glatt & Verkehrt festival, which was founded two years later. To do this, he brought ORF / Radio Ö1 (and thus also the curators Wolfgang Schlag and today’s artistic director Albert Hosp) and the European Broadcast Union (EBU) on board: “I started the festival to show that there is something else than your own four walls and your own culture. “Glatt & Verkehrt was not supposed to become a mainstream world music festival (a term that Jo Aichinger tried to avoid), the experimental,” inverted “was closer to him than the” smooth ” , the mainstream: “I wanted to achieve something that starts out from the traditional forms of folk music and at the same time extends into the contemporary and also into the experimental field.”

For the Minoritenkirche (since 2003 Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche) and its specific spatial and acoustic specifications, Jo Aichinger initiated two further festivals:

In 1999 he began to develop the format for an extraordinary spring festival, which – initially only encompassing a few evenings – has now grown into a series of several weeks: the Imago Dei Easter Festival. With its artistically and content-wise finely coordinated program with music from different ethnic groups and epochs (including several commissioned works), with discourse, literature and film, it illuminates a philosophical-spiritual theme of the year from different perspectives. The last edition curated by him for 2020 had to be postponed due to Corona. In June 2021, however, a large part of the program was finally implemented. Jo Aichinger managed the opening, the world premiere of Wolfgang Mitterers initiated by him “In the morning when the sun rose” still visit.

From “Voices” in 1997 and 2002 and “Sound Spaces” in 2003 and 2004, a second festival in “Sound Space” arose: Contrasts. Strange music that Aichinger curated together with Matthias Osterwold and Gottfried Hattinger from 2003 to 2009. He was able to implement his love for experimental music and avant-garde above all here and also in the sound art track of the Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche, which he was to curate until his retirement in May 2020.

Jo Aichinger has received several awards: In 2014 he received the honorary award of the jury of the Austrian World Music Award, in 2017 the appreciation award in the music section (cultural awards of the state of Lower Austria) and also in 2017 the Austrian art award in the music category.

We will all miss Jo Aichinger very much.
In the sound space of Krems, in the city’s cultural scene and in the Lower Austrian and Austrian music festival landscape. He was always on the lookout for music that challenged himself and the audience: with all his heart and soul, his love, his enthusiasm and his great commitment.

We, the team of the Klangraum Krems Minoritenkirche and the festival Glatt & Verkehrt, would like to take this opportunity to thank “our Jo” for the wonderful cooperation over many years and for his never-ending ideas.

Our deepest condolences go to his wife Barbara and his children Jakob and Anna.

You can find personal words from Albert Hosp on the death of Jo Aichinger at https://www.glattundverkehrt.at/de/nachruf-jo/jo-aichinger-1955-2021

Press photos: https://celum.noeku.at/pinaccess/showpin.do?pinCode=QMZLX
© Helmut Lackinger (can be used free of charge for press purposes if the name is given)

Inquiries & contact:

Barbara Pluch
barbara.pluch@noe-festival.at; ++43(0)664 60499322
Lower Austria Festival and Cinema GmbH,
Minoritenplatz 5, 3500 Krems

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