The legendary international Jazzfestival Saalfelden returns August 21–24 with bold, boundary-pushing jazz and beyond in the Austrian Alps. Expect international stars, fresh Austrian acts, and unique performances across alpine stages and intimate venues. See you in Saalfelden!
Austrian Artists at Saalfelden:
Skorupa 5 “Sonic Feast”
Austria, Germany, Estonia
Leonhard Skorupa – reeds
Silke Eberhard – reeds
Kirke Karja – piano, keys
Robert Landfermann – bass
Leif Berger – drums
Commission from Jazzfestival Saalfelden for Leonhard Skorupa
From its Proto-Indo-European root a “feast” is at least sacred, maybe even divine. For the opening of this year’s jazz festival, award-winning instrumentalist, composer, and arranger Leonhard Skorupa from Vienna composed and conceived a blessed new work “with a broad arc, in the tension between structure and improvisational freedom.” With a particular focus on various clarinets, which will be played by the “young rebel of Austrian jazz” (Ö1) himself, as well as his esteemed colleague Silke Eberhard, plus Estonian pianist Kirke Karja on piano and Rhodes, bassist Robert Landfermann and drummer Leif Berger this quintet will serve up their programmatic “sonic feast.” In addition to graphic/non-linear sight-reading notations and Skorupa-style hand-signal cues, sonic interjections and distortions from the mixing desk will also come into play. For Skorupa, “the element of surprise is very important, as in my previous work.” Hallelujah!
BEZAU BEATZ Orchestra of Good Hope
Austria, Argentina, Portugal
Leo Genovese – piano
Luîs Vicente – trumpet
João Pedro Brandão – sax, bass pedal
Camila Nebbia – sax
Sofia Salvo – bariton sax
Lucien Dubuis – bass clarinet
Demian Cabaud, Bass
Pedro Melo Alves – drums
Alfred Vogel – drums
In the “Orchestra of Good Hope” an idea turned into a signal: Argentinian pianist and keyboardist Leo Genovese and drummer Alfred Vogel founded this encouraging improvising ensemble on the occasion of the “Bezau Beats” festival in 2024. With their Cosmic Brothers Luis Vicente on trumpet, João Pedro Brandão on flute and pedal board and Demian Cabaud on bass as well as Camila Nebbia (tenor sax) and Sofia Salvo (baritone sax) and drummer Pedro Melo Alves as well as Lucien Dubuis (bass clarinet), they unite to form a cosmic, musical family “in the belief that music stands above all earthly things”. Nada Brahma – the world is sound!
WE HIKE JAZZ cinema of nature
Austria, UK, Germany, Portugal
Lukas Kranzelbinder – bass
Anna Tsombanis – saxophone
Pedro Melo Alves – drums
We Hike Jazz – Leogang: For many years, Austrian bassist and composer Lukas Kranzelbinder (Shake Stew, Mario Rom’s Interzone) has been hiking up various peaks and high-altitude trails together with the audience in search of a sound that is open in all directions and gives the mountain a new musical facet as a place of tradition. For the first day of the festival, he has put together an international all-star group as musical mountain guides who will provide the audience with a sound experience in a unique setting. The first metres in altitude are conquered with the Steinbergbahn cable car, then the route leads over the small and large Asitz to the Naturkino. A jazz concert and a good snack await the participants there.
Chez Fría „Die Kunst dem Fuge“
Austria
Lorenz Widauer – trumpet, synthesizer
Felix Gutschi – recorder
Ferdinand Rauchmann – synthesizer
Maximilian Rehrl – bass, synthesizer
Paul Widauer – drums
Five friends who met at Salzburg’s music high school and are now studying widely across academic Europe meet at “Chez Fria” to accompany Hildegard von Bingen, Bach, and Webern to the club – with synthesizer, drums, bass, trumpet, and recorder. With „Die Kunst dem Fuge“, which roughly translates as “The Art of him Fugue,” the five delightfully irreverent traditional modernizers teach counterpoint how to dance. Originally formed as an experiment for the Sanssouci Festival near Potsdam, their fusion of older music with funk, trap, hip hop, electronica, and jazz has since earned them the Hubert von Goisern Prize, partly because, as they themselves say, “we never lack a necessary dose of humor.”
Eyes to the Sun
Argentina, Austria
Leo Genovese – piano
Camila Nebbia – saxophone
Alfred Vogel – drums
“Hope is the light that illuminates the path to the future.” A quote from Goethe that perfectly fits this album. Recorded in just one studio day in Buenos Aires, it expands the “sonic brotherhood” of (New York-based) Argentinian pianist Leo Genovese with drummer (and Bezau Beatz head) Alfred Vogel to include the saxophone of (Berlin-based) Argentinian Camila Nebbia. Although freely improvised, the trio „manages in an astounding manner to excavate proper song structures from their river of unlimited imagination.” “Eyes to the Sun” is more than “Carpe Diem,” because, according to Vogel, who had to go through cancer-hell shortly after these recordings, which he has since luckily escaped: “There are no important or unimportant events in life, every second that we are allowed to spend on this planet, counts.“
JAZZ BRUNCH MIT MOJO INCORPORATION
Austria
Tamina Mayrwöger – vocals
Christoph Dedl – guitar
Benjamin Mayr – bass
Jakob Mayr – trombone
Fabian Sparlinek – keys
Edin Sudar – percussion, backing vocals
Lukas Schönböck – drums
Rainer Gutternigg – trumpet, violin
This band has everything it takes: Schmalz, attitude and sexiness! Mojo Incorporation breathes the spirit of the sixties and seventies, but lives fully in the present. Carried by the charismatic voice of lead singer Tamina Mayrwöger, the seven gentlemen who love to play, with strong horns and a powerful rhythm section. They bring a sound to the stage that elegantly combines the power of the blues, the message of soul and the sex of funk. The band guarantees the perfect product for heart, brain and legs – in the studio as well as live on stage! Because Mojo is a dish best served hot. Yummy!
Crutches
Austria, Russia, Germany
Valentin Schuster – drums
Olga Reznichenko – keys
Jan Frisch – git, voc
Laure Boer – Klangkunst
Wimp, Frog, and Claw are only three of the “FOUR LTTR WRDS” of this festival-tested quartet, which released its debut album with “elevator music for the claustrophobic” in early 2025 on the Leipzig based label “Viel Erfolg Mit Der Musik” (Lots of success with the music). Guitarist, bassist, and composer Jan Frisch, keytarist and synthesizer player Olga Reznichenko, folktronics artist Laure Boer on “monochord, electronics, stones, telephone,” and drummer Valentin Schuster, known from Edi Nulz/The True Harry Nulz, offer “tongue-in-cheek, acrobatic punk with metric ambivalence” to “sandblast well settled habits of reception”. The sound may briefly jangle and sparkle in an almost conciliatory way, but only to unleash a metal broadside on this krautrock chamber jazz barge within the next beautiful moment of shock. Epidemics and computers, particle physics and assembly lines are merely thematic “crutches” to be discarded as quickly as possible, optionally by way of expressive dancing.
Melting Pot
Argentina, Poland, Belgium, Norway, Austria
Sofia Salvo – saxophone
Kasia Kapela – violin
Alex Koo – fender rhodes
Henrik Sandstad Dalen – bass
Judith Schwarz – drums
For several years now, the Saalfelden Jazz Festival has been actively participating in the ‘Melting Pot’ programme. Top-class European festivals from Poland, Germany, Norway, Belgium and Austria, select young talents for this melting pot, who then improvise and present a joint programme as part of these events.
Kasho Chualan / Lukas König
Kurdistan/Kanada, Austria
Kasho Chualan – prepared piano, electronics
Lukas König – drums, amplified cymbal
Kurdish-Canadian pianist and composer Kasho Chualan is considered the “antichrist of classical music,” partly because she not only crosses borders, but prefers to tear them down. “Manipulating and improvising with an experimental, dreamlike, narrative, and structural approach” results in cut-up collages such as her “Trauma Nostalgique,” with a “sound of the necessity of resistance against extreme radical patriarchal regimes.” A Viennese resident, she already performed in solo-togetherness last December with multitasking drummer and sound maker Lukas König, whom Ö1 once described as a “musical particle accelerator,” prompting all sorts of #experimental hashtags. As Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, the wise Indian spiritual teacher, knew: “The unexpected and unpredictable is real.”
Schmack
Austria
Andreas Holler – saxophone, flute
Philipp Wohofsky – keys
Tobias Wöhrer – bass
Patrick Pillichshammer – drums
Schmack have set themselves the goal of making pop music while remaining free, breaking through patterns and improvising. Their new album ‘In Love’ is ‘a journey through infinite facets of human emotion, a sonic manifesto of love, passion and unwavering creativity’, writes Schmack.
WE HIKE JAZZ Steinalm
Austria, USA, Germany
Lukas Kranzelbinder – bass
Jon Irabagon – saxophone
Max Andrjewski – drums
This year, the Austrian bassist and composer Lukas Kranzelbinder (Shake Stew, Mario Rom’s Interzone) is once again hiking together with the audience on various hiking paths in search of a sound that is open in all directions and to give the mountain as a place of tradition a new musical facet. On the second hike on Saturday, the idyllically situated Steinalm (1,268 Hm) is climbed not only musically. On the hut, a beautiful final concert and a tasty snack with homemade products as well as a magnificent view of the Saalfelden basin await you.
Elektro Guzzi
Austria
Bernhard Hammer – guitar
Jakob Schneidewind – bass
Bernhard Breuer – drums
Mario Stadler – sound engineer
For twenty years, this Vienna-based man-machine has been improvising a fascinating “ritual music,” which they call “analog techno”—in a classic live setup of guitar, bass, and drums. “We go on stage and improvise,” says bassist Jakob Schneidewind. “We’ve discovered this style over the past few years. The interplay in improvisation is therefore paramount.” Inspired by an Italian motorcycle, the trio has brought their consistently futuristic club music to dance enthusiasts on numerous LPs and EPs, and, of course, at more than 500 live concerts from Berghain to Roskilde. And now, finally, at the Nexus.
Flüsterkneipe
Austria
Tobias Kobl – guitar, vocals
Felix Zinsser – bass, vocals
Gregor Fussenegger – violin, vocals
Friedrich Vösenhuber – trombone, guitar, vocals
Four young musicians with violin, guitar, trombone and double bass enchant with a repertoire of gypsy jazz, swing and bossa and revive the charm of the Golden 20s. Songs of lightness and joy, but also melancholy and longing leave no heart untouched with their dreamy lyrics.
Misz Sputnik
Austria
Sigrid Langrehr – vocals
Laila Reichenpfader – vocals
Hubert Sommerauer – vocals
Lucia Steidl – vocals
Magdalena Heller – dance
Paulina Krasser – performance
Eva Maria Schitter – performance
Bernhard Vierthaler – vocals, performance
Lea Wiednig – performance
Cornel Entfellner – performance
Misz Sputnik sends signals from space into the Alpine music landscape, which offers everything from pop, schlager, après-ski to German rap and wave, pulsating above and below alpine pastures and concrete. Queer-feminist Alpine aliens perform in exotic costumes and masks in front of weird projections. The party level is pretty high, guaranteed, and with rather politically sarcastic lyrics, it generates a cathartic trip into the unconscious of the Alpine region from an intergalactic perspective.
Boat Concert: Anna Tsombanis & Yvonne Moriel
Germany, Austria
Anna Tsombanis – saxophone
Yvonne Moriel – saxophone
A lovely tradition: on the morning of the festival‘s Sunday, for several years now, it’s not just swimmers and campers from the nearby campsite who have been meeting for a rowing boat concert on the Ritzensee. The lake is anything but still when the musicians send their wide-open sounds way across the water and into the vast mountain backdrop.
Nothing Causes Anything
Austria, Germany
Yvonne Moriel – saxophone
Alex Kranabetter – trumpet, electronics
Vincent Pongracz – bass clarinet, electronics
Christian Lillinger – drums
Metaphysics or anti-calendar epigram? “Nothing Causes Everything” is the name of an updated version of this quartet featuring these two Austrian Jazz Prize winners: Yvonne Moriel on saxophone, who last year also demonstrated fascinating versatility with her flash mobs at the festival, and Vincent Pongrácz on bass clarinet and electronics. They first met in 2024 with sound architect Alex Kranabetter and his noise-processed trumpet for a compositionally improvised set at their “Synesthetic Wednesday” concert series in Vienna. The result was described at the time as “experimental noise jazz.” The new addition to the group fits perfectly: drummer Christian Lillinger, “the man who takes drumming to a higher level” (Die Zeit). What these four create out of nothing not only becomes something, but so much better than that.
Nomfusi
South Africa, Austria
Nomfusi Ngonyama – vocals
Talo Ndou – guitar
Lukas Pamminger – bass
Klaus Brennsteiner – drums
John Amoako – keys
Experience the infectious energy of Nomfusi – the South African power voice who inspires audiences worldwide with her blend of township rhythms, Afro-soul and gospel. Nomfusi, who grew up in the township of KwaZakhele, brings the stories of her childhood and the spiritual power of her culture to the stage with her music. Her performances are a firework display of emotion, dance and musical diversity – a real experience for all the senses.
Childrens concert: Gedankenreiseorchester
Austria
Laura Lydia Pfeffer – keys, voice
Victoria Pfeil – saxophone, voice
Gidi Kalchhauser – bass, percussion, voice
Paul Wregg – violin, voice
What happens when the Thought Travel Orchestra finds a mysterious suitcase? Curiosity is aroused, and the audience embarks on a journey to discover its contents. After many attempts, the suitcase finally opens to reveal a world full of fantastic surprises. Who would have thought there was room in a suitcase for a llama, a race car, or invisible creatures? As if that weren’t exciting enough, these objects also make sounds.
Spiritual Unity Session
Austria, South Korea, USA
Lukas Kranzelbinder – bass
Sun-Mi Hong – drums
Hamid Drake – drums
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`Spiritual Unity’ is the name of the legendary closing concert that Lukas Kranzelbinder, bassist and mastermind behind Shake Stew, has been hosting on the Sunday evening of the festival since 2019. What happens on stage remains open until the very end: it arises spontaneously from the large circle of festival musicians. But one thing is certain: this concert represents what jazz in Saalfelden is all about – openness, encounter, diversity and depth. A spiritual finale that surprises anew every year – and celebrates the power of collective improvisation.