The Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival (alternate: Kremerata Musica Festival; Internationales Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus) is an annual chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

 festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

 located in the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n state

States of Austria

Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states, known in German as Länder . Since Land is also the German word for a country, the term Bundesländer is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitution of Austria uses both terms...

 of Burgenland

Burgenland

Burgenland is the easternmost and least populous state or Land of Austria. It consists of two Statutarstädte and seven districts with in total 171 municipalities. It is 166 km long from north to south but much narrower from west to east...

. It is held at three venues in Lockenhaus

Lockenhaus

Lockenhaus is a town in the district of Oberpullendorf in Burgenland in Austria.- History :The town was part of Hungary since the foundation of the kingdom in the year 1000. Since 1898 the name Léka had to be used because of the Magyarization by the government in Budapest...

: Burg Lockenhaus

Burg Lockenhaus

Burg Lockenhaus is a castle and medieval fortress located in the Güns Valley in the southeastern part of Lockenhaus, in Burgenland, eastern Austria. The castle was built in Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles around 1200, and was initially called "Leuca" or Léka...

 castle, Church of St. Nikolaus

Church of St. Nikolaus, Lockenhaus

The Church of Saints Nicholas is an early Baroque parish church located in the Güns Valley in Lockenhaus, in the Austrian state of Burgenland. It was built during the period of 1655 to 1669. Commissioned by Franz III. Nádasdy, the church was entrusted to the Augustinians and was dedicated to both...

, and the old monastery of Lockenhaus. The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

 has referred to as perhaps one of the "two most refined music festivals of all", and a European cultural treasure. While both older and younger talents perform, notable performers include Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...

, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...

, Heinz Holliger

Heinz Holliger

Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger Heinz Holliger (born 21 May 1939 is a Swiss oboist, composer and conductor.-Biography:He was born in Langenthal, Switzerland, and began his musical education at the conservatories of Bern and Basel. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez...

, Cho-Liang Lin

Cho-Liang Lin

Cho-Liang Lin , born in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is a Taiwanese American violinist who is renowned for his appearances as a soloist with major orchestras. "Musical America" named him its "Instrumentalist of the Year" in 2000...

, and András Schiff

András Schiff

András Schiff is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist, who has won a number of awards including the Grammy and made numerous recordings.- Biography :...

. According to its founder, violinist Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer is a Latvian violinist and conductor. In 1980 he left the USSR and settled in Germany.-Biography:Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish and Latvian-Swedish origins. He began playing the violin at the age of four, receiving instruction from his father and his grandfather,...

, the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival philosophically resembles the Marlboro Music Festival

Marlboro Music School and Festival

The Marlboro Music School and Festival is a retreat for advanced classical training and musicianship held for seven weeks each summer in Marlboro, Vermont...

 in Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

, US.

History

In 1974, Father Josef Herovitsch, an opera enthusiast, wanted to organize concerts in his parish. The first concert, "Lockenhauser Konzerte", occurred at the entrance hall of the rectory

Rectory

A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...

. Two years later, the Latvian violinist and conductor, Kremer, came to Lockenhaus and gave a "warm-up concert" preceding his Vienese Evening. He returned each year, bringing his Russian friends such as David Geringas

David Geringas

David Geringas is a world-renowned cellist and conductor who studied under Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1970 he won the Gold Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition...

, Andrei Gavrilov

Andrei Gavrilov

Andrei Vladimirovich Gavrilov is a Russian pianist.- Life :Gavrilov was born into a multinational family of artists in Moscow. His father was Vladimir Gavrilov , one of the leading Russian painters of the middle of the 20th century, through whom Gavrilov also has German ancestors...

, Elisabeth Leonskaja

Elisabeth Leonskaja

Elisabeth Leonskaja is a noted Georgian pianist and teacher. She was born on November 23, 1945 to a Russian family living in Tbilisi, then the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic....

, Oleg Maisenberg

Oleg Maisenberg

-Early life and career:Born 29 April 1945 to a Jewish family in Odessa, Oleg Maisenberg received his first piano lessons from his mother at the age of five. He completed his studies at the Central Music School Kishinev and at the Gnessin Institute in Moscow with Professor Jocheles...

, and others who performed at Lockenhauser Konzerte before the founding of Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival.

With Kremer searching for a place to develop a chamber music festival, the music loving Herowitsch offered him what he needed: two performing spaces in Lockenhaus. One was in the hall of the preserved medieval castle and the other was in the town's baroque church. Beginning in 1981, Kremer and other musicians began playing chamber music for small audiences in a less commercial, more collegial setting. By 1987, the Lockenhaus festival group included a European tour and a single American concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Kremer wanted to end his involvement with the festival in 1990 because it was an exhausting experience; the festival went through a crisis. Conceived as an intimate gathering of musical friends, it had grown to 30 concerts in two weekends with more than 60 artists. The following year, there was no festival while organizers considered how to proceed. The retooled festival, renamed the Kremerata Musica, began in 1992, but stayed in Lockenhaus. Each festival concentrates on one or two composers.

By its 30th anniversary in 2011, the featured music is that of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

. Kremer is the Artistic Director while Herowitsch is the festival administrator.

Events

Lockenhaus is said to be a music festival like few others in the world with Vermont's Marlboro coming closest. The festival offers song recitals, solo instrumental recitals and chamber music. Most rehearsals are open to the public. A given concert's works are announced only twenty-four hours in advance. Spontaneous, 12-hour marathon concerts, interspersed with meal and rest breaks, are not uncommon.

The festival occurs in the summer and lasts for two weeks. The Lockenhaus Academy for Chamber Music occurs every other year following a tradition of promoting young musicians and composers.