The 46th edition of Jazzfestival Saalfelden is coming up! August 20–23, the legendary festival hosts special projects and sonic spaces in the idyllic mountainous landscape once again! Take a scroll downward to see some of this year’s program!
But before you do…
Heads up! Austrian Music Export and Jazzfestival Saalfelden are giving four Austrian musicians the chance to experience the festival from the inside with an exclusive ticket giveaway. Four lucky winners will each receive a Main Stage Ticket valid for August 21–23, as well as access to a Musicians & Industry Professionals Meet & Greet on Friday, August 21, at 11:30 a.m. at Hotel Das Saal. The raffle is open exclusively to Austrian and Austria-based musicians, offering a unique opportunity to connect with fellow artists and music industry professionals while enjoying the festival program. Scroll down for details!
Highlights from the 2026 Program
Ranging from subtle sonic landscapes and energetic rhythmic explorations to experimental sound approaches, the newly announced acts cover a wide spectrum of contemporary musical expression. Once again, the festival highlights artists beyond the mainstream and invites audiences to experience unexpected and inspiring sonic journeys.
In 2026, Saalfelden remains a festival that not only presents jazz, but understands it as a social, spatial, and artistic practice.
MMM: A Score as a Living Organism
With “WAS___,” MMM (Maja Osojnik, Mathia*s Lenz, and Matija Schellander) present at the Kunsthalle Saalfelden the beginning of a ten-year journey through space and sound. The point of departure is a 66-meter-long graphic score that understands itself less as a completed work than as an open, constantly evolving system.
Printing techniques, tape recordings, loudspeakers, and performative interventions merge into an experimental arrangement situated somewhere between installation, concert, and acoustic trace collection. Together with percussionist Špela Mastnak, this gives rise to a fragile, physical sound world in which touch, materiality, and micro-noises move to the center. The audience itself becomes part of a process that continues to grow with every performance.
The Big Shake: A Homecoming Anniversary for Shake Stew
Entirely different in character, yet conceived just as collectively, is the anniversary project by Shake Stew. When the band performed the opening concert of the Jazzfestival Saalfelden in 2016, it marked the beginning of an extraordinary success story, and today the septet counts among the defining formations of the European jazz scene, receiving distinctions including the German Jazz Prize 2021 and the Amadeus Austrian Music Award 2023.
To mark the group’s tenth anniversary, Lukas Kranzelbinder now returns with a large-scale project developed especially for Saalfelden. Under the title “The Big Shake – A Saalfelden Homecoming,” Bürgermusik Saalfelden and the Eisenbahner Stadtkapelle combine their sonic worlds with the music of Shake Stew, forming a musical parade of around 70 performers that will move through the town on Saturday from 2 pm, beginning at Rathausplatz, continuing to the Congress center and onward into the park. At 3 pm, a grand finale will follow there: first featuring the two Saalfelden brass bands, before Shake Stew takes over the Park Stage in its customary line-up.
Strikingly Present: Distinguished Female Pianists at the Piano
This year, distinguished female musicians set essential accents within the program, with Marta Sanchez, Marina Džukljev, Tamara Stefanovich, and Eve Risser among several internationally acclaimed pianists appearing on stage. Their concepts range from finely etched composition to free improvisation and radical sonic research, and it is precisely these differing aesthetic approaches that underscore the artistic breadth of the festival.
Main Stage Between Commissioned Composition and Sonic Research
Once again, the Jazzfestival Saalfelden places its main stage program in the hands of distinctive artistic voices and musical openness. Yvonne Moriel presents “Strange Motion,” a commissioned composition created especially for the Jazzfestival Saalfelden. The new project moves between jazz, chamber music, and experimental sonic research, and counts among the festival’s central world premieres.
What follows is a contrasting arc extending from the subtle sensitivity of the Henriette Eilertsen Trio to the dense complexity of the Marta Sanchez Quintet, and onward to the intense musical dialogue between Andreas Schaerer and Daniel Garcia.
Saturday once again stands under the sign of powerful ensembles and musical openness. Opposing the avant-garde project “SDLW” around Tamara Stefanovich are the finely balanced Sheen Trio and the orchestral layering of Dag Magnus Narvesen’s octet “DAMANA.” This is followed by the transatlantic summit meeting between Darius Jones and Otomo Yoshihide, before the Chicago Underground Duo ultimately pursues its complex musical visions.
On Sunday, the trio “Industriesalon” around Marina Džukljev opens the main stage program. Afterwards, the cinematically forceful formation “Ye Olde 2” by trombonist Jacob Garchik and the intercultural duo “Thousand Leaves” take over as further stations of the day. The closing point is finally set by the revival of Chris Speed’s legendary quartet “YEAH NO,” which carries the New York downtown sound of the turn of the millennium into the present.
New Spaces, Night Programs, and Alpine Resonances
Away from the large stages, the festival opens new spaces, and for the first time two solo concerts will take place at the Museum Schloss Ritzen. The Polish project “Zbigniew – NO ANGRY songs” and Delphine Joussein’s solo work “Calamity” promise intense and immediate concert experiences.
At the Otto-Gruberhalle, the paths of the most diverse sonic free spirits once again intersect, and acts such as Mel*E, Brique “La danse du béton,” Trunk, and Earthball open spaces deep into the night between club culture, noise, improvisation, and electronic music. In doing so, the expanded late-night program responds to the high audience numbers of previous years’ Nexus+ concerts and offers musical discoveries in the hall until 1 am. The later program points help ease visitor flows, while the legendary Nexus Bar can once again serve equally as an open and relaxed meeting point for everyone involved.
Alpine Resonances and Urban Tracks
The popular “We Hike Jazz” excursions once again combine the experience of nature with the concert format. While Lukas Kranzelbinder leads the first tour on Thursday, August 20, as a secret festival overture, saxophonist Anna Tsombanis takes over the second hike on Saturday. Both tours are already fully booked.
Two alpine hut concerts complement the program outside the classical venues and extend the jazz context outward into the alpine landscape: the ensemble Klakradl and the quartet Tini Trampler & Playbackdolls combine jazz, Wienerlied, pop, and performance with unrestrained joy in playing. A particular highlight is also promised by the concert at the historic hermitage above Schloss Lichtenberg, where saxophonist Chris Speed and trumpeter Cuong Vu create a contemplative counterpoint to the musical bustle in the valley.
Throughout the town, the freely accessible City Tracks invite spontaneous musical discoveries, while the Short Cuts offer compact concert experiences marked by stylistic openness. In the two projects Christoph Cech & oenm and Stefanovich / Dell / Lillinger / Westergaard, improvised music encounters contemporary music, while formations such as the Lava Quartet and DaughterDaughter complete the musical spectrum. The ticketed concert series Shortcuts is already sold out.
International Highlights: Chicago Underground Duo & Yeah NO
Jazzfestival Saalfelden will welcome the Chicago Underground Duo, one of the most influential formations in the American avant-garde scene. Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor will present their latest album ‘Hyperglyph’, selected by The New York Times as one of the Top 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2025. Marking their return after an eleven-year hiatus, the album combines freely improvised trumpet–drum duets with electroacoustic grooves and meditative soundscapes. Rooted in folk traditions while remaining forward-looking, ‘Hyperglyph’ reflects the boundary-pushing aesthetic of the International Anthem label and the duo’s enduring creative vision.
The legendary New York jazz and new-music formation Yeah NO will also return to the stage. Featuring Chris Speed (The Bad Plus), Jim Black, Skúli Sverrisson and Cuong Vu, the group has been a defining force in the New York scene since the 1990s. By merging jazz with influences from rock, Eastern European folk traditions and minimal music, the quartet has developed a highly distinctive sonic identity. Their performance in Saalfelden offers a rare opportunity to experience this influential project live in its original line-up.
The 2026 Key Visual: A Playful Tribute to Saalfelden Leogang
The 2026 visual concept places the festival’s host region centre stage. Recognisable buildings and characteristic landscapes merge into a playful jazz-inspired scene. Influenced by a contemporary doodle aesthetic, the illustration combines a strong local connection with artistic openness.
The design was created by Marie Peiskammer, a student in the MultiMediaArt programme at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences. It emerged as the winning project of a design competition held within the Communication Design course led by Berlin-based graphic designer Martin Gnadt. Peiskammer’s concept impressed the jury with its playful lightness and will shape the festival’s visual appearance in 2026.
Austrian brass bands in the festival’s public-space program
The festival will feature local Saalfelden brass ensembles as part of its large-scale outdoor and community-oriented events, continuing the festival’s tradition of mixing Austrian regional music culture with contemporary improvisation.
Yvonne Moriel Receives Composition Commission
The 46th Jazzfestival Saalfelden will open with a strong statement in support of Austria’s contemporary jazz scene. Saxophonist Yvonne Moriel — already well known to audiences in Saalfelden Leogang — has been awarded this year’s composition commission and will open the Mainstage. Moriel is widely regarded as one of the most distinctive Austrian musicians of her generation. Following studies in Linz, Vienna and Zurich, she developed a unique musical language that bridges jazz, improvisation and electronic music. Whether performing with large ensembles such as Shake Stew and the Swiss Jazz Orchestra, in intimate formations or across interdisciplinary projects, Moriel’s work combines energy, fragility and determination. Her own releases fuse jazz with electronic textures, dub and hip-hop — creating music that pulses, breathes and continuously evolves. Her opening performance underlines the festival’s commitment to presenting bold artistic visions from Austrian artists on an international stage.
exclusive ticket giveaway!
Austrian Music Export and Jazzfestival Saalfelden are giving four Austrian musicians the chance to experience the festival from the inside with an exclusive ticket giveaway. Four lucky winners will each receive a Main Stage Ticket valid for August 21–23, as well as access to a Musicians & Industry Professionals Meet & Greet on Friday, August 21, at 11:30 a.m. at Hotel Das Saal. The raffle is open exclusively to Austrian and Austria-based musicians, offering a unique opportunity to connect with fellow artists and music industry professionals while enjoying the festival program. To apply, send an email to: office@musicaustria.at with the subject line: “Meet-and-Greet Saalfelden 2026”. Deadline to submit is July 28! Don’t be shy, apply!
See you in the mountains!