Culture – Liszt Festival 2024: “Raiding is the Champions League”

“This is the Champions League. “Anyone who appears here in Reiding is one of the world's best,” says director Johannes Gutrowats enthusiastically about the 2024 program. For example, the world's best pianists Kateryna Titova and Claire Huangci will visit Reiding, while the talents of the Diviners, Ensemble Minuet with Opera Flashes and the Radio String Quartet expand into the electronic range. .

“The range of the project is almost endless,” says Kutrowatz. . The director describes April's Brass Festival as “the best of fireworks,” from The Philharmonic Brass to Wieder, Gansch & Ball to the Joseph Hadin Brass and the original Woodstock musicians.

When you deal with Liszt, you always deal with superlatives and the Champions League. We can't and don't want to buy anything cheap. Johannes Kutrowatz, director of the Liszt Festival

The presentation to guests on Liszt's birthday in October will not be offered until the spring, because as a result of the audience survey, it was decided not only to bring forward the start time of the concerts at 6.30 pm, but also a calendar for the transition to the school year planning. In future, the actual Liszt Festival will be held only on Liszt's birthday in October. The already established Family Concerts in December, the Baroque Jazz Days in March, Brassfest in April and the Summer Concerts in June – the festival venue will be an invitation to Burgenland.

Six million euros will flow into the expansion of the Liszt Center and Liszt Birthplace

The concert function is currently separated from the construction site area by a construction fence, which has been converted into a small art gallery with drawings by the children of the Reiding Elementary School about Franz Liszt. Structural improvements to the Liszt location should be completed by the start of the 2025 concert season.

According to Gerald Goger, managing director of Landesimmobilien Burgenland, investments of six million euros will create significant added value for buildings and events over the next fifteen months. It will create an extension totaling 720 square meters, which will provide additional exhibition space on two levels in relation to the Liszt birthplace as well as space for lectures or workshops with program and storage rooms. There will also be a catering area, a spacious orchestra dressing room, back office area and several sanitary facilities.

“The entire region will benefit economically and touristically from the expansion of the Liszt center,” says Central Burgenland state councilor Heinrich Dorner.

At the same time, Liszt's birthplace is being renovated and the exterior areas are being redesigned. “The original paintings were found in Liszt, they are being discovered and reconstructed,” says state governor and culture officer Hans Peter Toskozil: “With the current renovation and structural expansion, the future of the Liszt center and a new era. The Liszt Festival begins now.

A new museum was created

Considering the more extensive exhibition space, it will be launched with a new museum concept by Teresa Gabriel. The concept is already ready and the tender for the design is going on. The decision will be taken on 6/7. In February an international advisory group will be chaired by Franz Liszt's great-granddaughter.

A total of thirty events await the audience in 2024, including some special events such as the 40th anniversary of the piano duo Kutrowats as part of a gala concert on June 8. “Between 2006 the number of concerts has tripled and the number of visitors has doubled. In 2023 there were 9,523 guests. “We're barely scratching the 10,000 mark,” says business manager Thomas Mercich, who talks about a utilization rate of about 70 percent.