About us

Klangspuren Schwaz, the Tyrolean festival of new music, was founded in 1993 by Thomas Larcher, Maria-Luise Mayr and Anton Hütter and has since developed into the largest and most successful festival of contemporary music in western Austria. Today’s programming is still strongly informed by the original concept of providing the contemporary music scene in western Austria with a professional, constantly growing platform while at the same time honouring its origins and innovative character. Klangspuren also sees itself as an employer, mediator and promoter of young composers and performers on a local and international level. We achieve this in large part by systematically integrating young talent into our concert programme, commissioning compositions and developing new projects. Another main focus has been and continues to be our work in augmenting our festival programme with music education projects for children and young people. 

Our annual festival, which takes place in September, has been organised by the composer, musician and music curator Christof Dienz since 2022 (in 2022 together with Clara Iannotta and in 2024 with Eva Reiter). Previous artistic directors include Reinhard Kager, Matthias Osterwold, Peter Paul Kainrath and the festival’s founder Thomas Larcher.