For its inaugural year, the Austrian Jazz Award has chosen three winners for 2024, each of which will perform at a gala at Vienna’s Porgy & Bess on December 5th and will receive a cash prize and two follow-up concerts each.
Jazz Award Winners
Newcomer Award: Yvonne Moriel
Yvonne Moriel studied both classical and jazz saxophone. She can be heard performing with internationally successful bands such as Shake Stew, renowned Swiss Jazz Orchestra, as part of Christian Muthspiel’s Orjazztra and in many other ensembles. As a member of the Porgy & Bess Stagebands led by Christoph Cech and Ralph Mothwurf she was performing there monthly from 2022 to 2024. In collaboration with Vincent Pongrácz she also curated the 2024 season of the Synesthetic Wednesday series, resulting in several new projects with various exciting artists. In 2023, she debuted with four concerts at the Saalfelden Jazz Festival, including a performance with her quartet sweetlife, which she founded a year earlier and was just recently selected as New Austrian Sound of Music Act for 2025/26.
Best Album: TIMELESS WARRIOR by ECHOBOOMER
From 2020 to 2023, “TIMELESS WARRIOR” was created, the 2nd studio album by the band E C H O BOOMER. While Beate Wiesinger composes all the pieces, she considers the band to be a collective pool and synthesis of the musicians, their different personalities, and sonic languages. She is convinced that the notion of doing something “alone” is merely a construct. Integral to the aesthetics of this music is the collaboration with sound engineer & producer David Furrer, who also mixed the first album. Sonic openness, collages, miniatures, fragments that evolved into completed arrangements or remained as fragments during the recording process, free improvisational structures, songs, noise, minimally held moods – all of this constitutes TIMELESS WARRIOR.
Best Live Act: Synesthetic4
The quartet Synesthetic 4 values dynamic precision with an inimitable narrative touch. Its repertoire ranges from melodious to manic and includes a wide variety of off-color tonal shades. The driving force behind this formation is renowned clarinetist Vincent Pongracz, who has been blending jazz and hip-hop with the Synesthetic Octet for many years, employing the tropes of New Music and Dadaist zaniness. Largely foregoing musical ornamentation, Synesthetic 4 is far less eclectic in its approach than the octet. Audiences are in for a compelling experience where musical reduction is amped up to the max.
An ‘Academy’ of 82 experts selected a total of 35 nominees in the categories ‘Best Newcomer’, ‘Best Album’ and ‘Best Live Act’ from the more than 200 submissions for the period 2022-2024 by awarding points. On this basis, a jury of six experts from the Austrian and international jazz scene selected three winners who will perform at a gala at Vienna’s Porgy & Bess on December 5th and will receive a cash prize and two follow-up concerts each.