Accentus Austria

Fascinated by the multi-cultural substrate, out of which the music in the eastern Habsburg Empire in the 16th and 17th century arose, the ensemble Accentus Austria made vocal and instrumental music of Austria and the neighbouring countries its main concern. To bring to light the treasures of rare and unknown music and to work out the uniqueness of the style, it is necessary to look both into the own art music and popular music as well as across the borders to the West and to the East. Accentus Austria “looks” to the other end of Europe: many years of dealing with Spain’s Early Music have led to the development of a repertoire that extends from orally transmitted Sephardic Romances, by the way of the sumptuous and manifold polyphonic music of the 16th century, to the soloist baroque music of the late 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. In recent years Accentus Austria has appeared in every important Austrian concert halls, in all European countries as well as in Morocco, Egypt, Dubai and Israel. In 2006 Accentus Austria performed the scenic stage production “The Lament of Arianna” in the Teatro Apollon at Patras/Greece (European Cultural Capital 2006). It has recorded numerous CDs with Sephardic, Spanish and Austrian music. At present the ensemble has started a CD series devoted to rarely performed or unreleased Austrian baroque music for the label SONY – Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.

Foto: Ars Ramovš- Lucija Podbreznik, Gasper Jakovac, Katja Smolar