Christof Dienz is a composer, zither player, and bassoonist, born in Innsbruck in 1968. This year he was joint artistic director—along with composer Clara Iannotta—of the Klangspuren (“Sound Traces”) festival in Austria. Based in the small Tyrolean town of Schwaz in the Austrian Alps, Klangspuren features 18 concerts given over 18 days in venues around Schwaz, Innsbruck, and the nearby village of Rotholz. The festival was cofounded in 1994 by the composer and pianist Thomas Larcher (alongside Maria-Luise Mayr), who served as its director until 2003. This year’s festival was the first to be jointly directed by Dienz and Iannotta.
Although Klangspuren is an international contemporary music festival—which this year featured Riot Ensemble (disclosure: I am an artistic board member of the ensemble), Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, and the JACK Quartet among its performers—it places a strong emphasis on local music and musicians. Other events featured Klangforum Wien, the Tiroler Symphonieorchester, the Austrian avant-pop band 5K HD, the Viennese viola da gamba player Eva Reiter, and a “Klangwanderung” (“sound hike”) around Schwaz performed by high school students from the Innsbruck Musikgymnasium. Given the festival’s breathtaking but relatively inaccessible location, I wanted to explore the tension between international festival curation and environmental responsibility. I also asked Dienz about the festival’s approach to diversity, prompted by the questions printed on the front covers of the program booklets: “Does music have gender?” and “Can sound be inclusive?” These are only partially answered in the programming itself, which is relatively gender balanced but still features overwhelmingly white composers and performers.
Iannotta herself was not at the festival, and an email received after this interview from the Klangspuren press office confirmed that she had in fact resigned. When I asked if she wanted to comment on her resignation, she requested that I quote this paragraph in its entirety:
“Leaving the artistic direction of Klangspuren Schwaz was a necessary, although difficult, decision. It became impossible for me to operate in the spirit of artistic freedom that a curatorial role such as this requires. Despite having to endure personal insults, at first I decided to keep working for Klangspuren so that I could actively contribute to what I believed could be a future filled with new, adventurous, and diverse musical voices. [Dienz himself responded to clarify that “The insults came not from my side; actually the insults came by email directed to both of us, to Clara and me as the artistic directors.”] Over time, it became clear to me that, working with this team, I would have to compromise on important principles and risk losing the trust of artists gained over nine years of dedicated, responsible curation in my continuing role as the artistic director of the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik. The words used by Christof Dienz in this interview do not represent my vision nor my motivation for including the brilliant artists who took part in the 2022 edition of Klangspuren Schwaz.”
The interview with Dienz took place at the Klangspuren festival offices in Schwaz, on September 18.
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