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 its neighbouring countries its main concern. For to bring to light the manifold treasures of rarely and unknown music and for to work out the uniqueness of the style, both the sight into the own art-music and popular music as well as the look across the borders to the West and to the East are necessary. Even to the other end of Europe “looks” Accentus austria: many years of occupation with Spain’s Early Music have led to the development of a repertoire that hence extends from orally transmitted Sefardic Romances, by the way of the sumptuous and manifold polyphonic music of the 16th century to the soloistic baroque music of the late 17th and the beginning 18th century.

Accentus austria appears as an ensemble of variable composition, the number of musicians ranges from three to seventeen according to the specific programme. For realising an intense interpretation of vocal music, high value is set to singing in one’s mother tongue. In recent years Accentus austria has appeared in each of Austria’s important concert halls, in all European Countries as well as in Maroque, Egypt, Dubai and Israel. In 2006 Accentus austria performed the scenical stage production “The Lament of Arianna” in the Teatro Apollon at Patras/Greece (European Cultural Capital 2006) and has recorded a lot of CDs with Sefardic, Spanish and Austrian music. At present the ensemble started a CD-series devoted to rarely performed or unreleased Austrian baroque music for the label SONY - Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.