Music is movement, emotion, and the living present. At the 48th Allegro Vivo Festival, Lower Austria's Waldviertel region will once again be transformed into a resounding landscape of historic locations, virtuoso encounters, and musical stories. Under the theme "On Stage," the festival will be dedicated to the art of staging from August 7 to September 20, 2026—that special magic that arises when space, sound, and audience merge into a shared experience. With 55 concerts at 28 venues, the Waldviertel region will become the country's largest music stage, where history becomes audible and music itself becomes a narrative form.
"Music is theater. It thrives on staging—on the moment when space, sound, and audience come together," explains artistic director Vahid Khadem-Missagh. Under the motto "Cycle of Encounters," this year's focus is particularly on the musical lifelines of Southern and Central Europe. Italy, the Balkans, and Austria engage in dialogue as culturally closely linked sound spaces. "For centuries, their cultures have shaped the vitality of Viennese Classicism, the emotionality of Romanticism, and the diversity of Modernism – and thus also the festival program," says Khadem-Missagh. At the same time, the international summer academy offers young talents from all over the world a platform for artistic exchange and creative work for the future.
The artistic director of the Allegro Vivo Chamber Music Festival, Vahid Khadem-Missagh, and the Kandinsky Quartet © Allegro Vivo
The festival opens with a musical journey to Italy. Ottorino Respighi's Antiche Danze ed Arie pays homage to historic Italy, complemented by the world premiere of a double concerto for violin, guitar, and string orchestra by Tristan Schulze. The focus is on timbres that resemble landscapes—lively, breathing, full of movement. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Souvenir de Florence" also brings a longing for Mediterranean lightness to the Academia Allegro Vivo festival orchestra and unfolds a grand romantic sound architecture in historic rooms.
The chamber music encounters in the abbey library of Altenburg Abbey, which becomes an intimate sound stage for international artists, are particularly moving. Pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja opens the concert series with works by Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms. Further evenings lead to virtuoso dialogues with music by Tartini, Geminiani, or rarely performed works by Mahler and Pejačević—music as both an emotional memory and a present experience.
Gala concert at the Kunsthaus Horn © Schewig Fotodesign
The festival also serves as a stage for crossing boundaries. The ensemble Uwaga! combines classical music, jazz, pop, and Balkan traditions to create a colorful sound cosmos. Violinist Benjamin Schmid dedicates himself to the myth of the virtuoso Niccolò Paganini and combines classical literature with improvisational freedom. Here, Allegro Vivo proves itself to be a laboratory for musical imagination and spontaneous creativity.
Language and music also enter into dialogue. In castle and cultural barns, literature becomes sound spaces – from texts by Ingeborg Bachmann, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Rainer Maria Rilke, accompanied by musical improvisations and chamber music miniatures. This creates a sensual connection between words and sound, memory and the present.
The festive finale is dedicated to the idea of peace with Arvo Pärt's "Da pacem domine" and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Violin Concerto in A major. Finally, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's "Italian Symphony" resounds as a musical journey through light, warmth, and movement—a melodious celebration of joie de vivre.
Allegro Vivo thus remains a festival of encounters, a place where music tells stories, connects people, and makes emotions visible. Stage, sound, and nature merge into a cultural experience that extends far beyond the concert hall.
August 7 to September 20, 2026
www.allegro-vivo.at
Concert at Horn City Lake © Schewig Fotodesign
