(Photo credit: Alexander Kofler)

OperaWire had the incredible opportunity to attend the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music this summer and learn firsthand about what makes this local community, nestled in the Austrian Alps, inspiring at an international level both artistically and sustainably. Innsbruck, Austria is a place where everything and everyone participates in celebrating Early Music as an art for right now.

In addition to aesthetic observations, however, there is much more than meets the eye. This festival knows what it takes to better the local environment and really make a positive difference as a large scale Green Event. And while this is their first season to officially become a Green Event, the efforts taken to make this happen prove their dedication to lead by example and it all stems from the leadership and collaboration happening both at the administration and artistic levels.

The three main qualities that come to mind immediately, for me, while discovering this festival are sustainability, accessibility and evolution.

Altogether, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music is a recipe for healthy life/work balance, existing at its core where music is life and life is music.

OperaWire visited with Artistic Director Eva-Maria Sens to learn more about what makes this festival function and how important it is to honor the joy of Early Music in very real ways.

OperaWire: What sets the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music apart from other summer music festivals in Europe?

Eva-Maria Sens: The specialized field of Early Music. Of course there are lots of great summer festivals, but most of them have a broader field of music they are presenting. We are really specialized in Early Music and historically informed performance. There are other festivals here in Europe that also specialize in this niche, but we are doing fully staged opera productions in addition to concert performances. We also do not feature just one composer, for example, we are not a Händel or Monteverdi festival. This is a festival about Early Music, both staged and not staged.

OW: How did you begin your career with the Innsbruck Festival?

EMS: I started here nine years ago as Head of Artistic Administration. Before that, I used to go on tours with an orchestra and was used to having a 24/7 job throughout the whole year. However, a festival has a different dynamic. We start building up this big wave towards the summer and then we are under a microscope for two months and then we go back to zero to start again. If you are with an orchestra, of course, you start at zero at the beginning of the season, but with a festival it’s a buildup of ten months preparation time, and then two months of intensity, including emotions, stress, music, talks, networking, interactions with everything and everyone. Then it’s over and you start again. So I thought, oh no, it’s not for me. But, I stayed. This “wave” and especially the Festwochen started to grow on me and so I stayed and took over the Artistic Director position. Before this, I worked on artistic planning with Alessandro De Marchi, who was the Artistic Director of Innsbruck Festival 2009-23. I learned on the job about being an Artistic Director and how to create the program for a festival, and how to create my own ideas. So, when they asked me to be Artistic Director, I said yes.

OW: How do you decide on what artists you want to invite to participate in the festival?

EMS: It’s a gut feeling, because I think there always has to be a connection between the venue, program, artist and audience. One could invite the best performer, but put them in the wrong venue and so it would not be a very good concert. It has potential to be, but somehow the magic just isn’t happening. So, I always start with the idea of the program and I think about what artist will be the best artist for the program, and which venue could be the perfect venue. Of course there are many wonderful artists and artists that you want to invite back every time, but it’s not always about the artistry. It is also about them being humans and what kind of humans they are. When someone is not a nice person, then it shows in their art. This is why it’s a gut feeling. Of course there are some things one can measure, like one’s ability to perform and how great they are. But, there’s another level and that’s the connection to the audience and to be able to communicate with them. Another thing is that the artist appreciates what we are doing here at Innsbruck Festival. They share the same idea of not just coming in to play a concert and leave, but they are experiencing the special atmosphere of the festival, community, and this wonder of Early Music we are creating here.

OW: I find Early Music to be, especially as we are talking about it now, all about that gut feeling. It is an expansion into the complexities and nuances of the human experience as every note that gets played. How do you feel you are learning more about Early Music as Artistic Director, and not specifically as a musician yourself?

EMS: Oh, a lot. With every artist I meet, I can learn something new from them. The great thing about Early Music is there are so many different ways of approaching it and over the past decades there have been many variations. I am not a musician myself, but I am able and interested in learning all about it. I am in no position to say, “I’m here now, I have this position as Artistic Director and I know everything already.” And this is the beautiful thing about running this festival. Every time you invite artists, you can learn from them. When I have an idea for a program, I give it to the artist and then they create something that is their own. It is no longer mine, but becomes a ping-pong-play between my idea and the knowledge and artistry of someone else. And I store the whole experience and keep it with me. I carry forward these ideas with me and at the end of my life this box will be really, really full of beautiful ideas and experiences that I created together with other people. This is my favorite part of my job, learning a lot from everyone.

OW: How does it feel to be aligned with Ottavio Dantone and the Accademia Bizantina Orchestra?

EMS: It’s a match made in heaven. As I said earlier, our festival is a niche festival and at the same time we are like a diamond because there aren’t many festivals like ours. We are able to create this wonderful art and we try not to be a festival only interested in the purpose of “selling.” Of course we need to sell tickets and make money. But, to create an atmosphere where the art and the artist are only responsible for the music and their art and nothing else is top priority for us. At the same time with Ottavio, who is only interested in the music he’s making and not the political or strategic moves for his career, he is bringing the music to life. The music is his life and his life is the music. This is the common purpose that we share, and that is at the base of everything we do here. We also share the same idea of bringing the emotions in the music to the people in our different fields. I also feel that everyone will agree with me when I say that Ottavio is one of the best musicians of Early Music alive. I’m in love with the Accademia Bizantina Orchestra and it is a dream to have them and to work with Ottavio here in Innsbruck.

OW: I feel at home here in Innsbruck and see a healthy balance at this festival that really encourages both human and musical connections alike. This is not a severely focused Early Music festival that takes an academic approach and this is not a music festival that puts its own reputation ahead of what it means to experience the wild nature of Innsbruck while here. I have discovered life and art connecting in new ways because of Innsbruck and I don’t want to leave this place. How do you feel about the festival’s connection with Innsbruck and what has the local community response been like?

EMS: First of all, I’m really happy you don’t want to leave because my vision for the festival is that the Innsbruck Festival is a place and time you will miss when you do leave. You have the feeling that you are missing something because you are no longer there as an artist and as a guest. We are already approaching our 50th anniversary and everyone here is kind of used to us existing and being established, so our goal each year is to reawaken the interest in our festival throughout the local population of Innsbruck. We are not like a statue in a museum that is separate from our local community. We are still present and want to continue to be this bubbling presence that everyone is interested in, whether it is an audience member from far away or right here in Innsbruck. We have existed since the middle of the 1970’s, so everyone here knows about us and nearly everyone has attended an event.

This year’s festival has been very positive and welcoming. I’ve had many experiences where I’ve hopped on a bus to get to the office, and overheard people talking about the festival without them knowing I was sitting there. They were so excited to talk about which event they had attended and which ones they were planning to attend in the future. And this is exactly what I want everyone to be doing, feeling like they are part of something exciting and not wanting to miss out on anything this festival has to offer. This makes me feel “sono contenta”.

OW: What makes the Innsbruck Festival a Green Event?

EMS: This is very important to us. To be a Green Event, is a whole application process with several different categories. Everything from the catering, to the transport, and what materials you use is part of a growing system where one can start as a Green Event basic level. Nearly everyone can apply for this basic level and minimize, for example, the use of one time plastic cups. From this basic level it gets more elaborate, for example, with catering one is required to not use any meat products. The final step is to offer only vegan options.

Innsbruck Festival decided to apply for this standard years ago, but it’s not so easy because we have 56 events with more than 20 venues throughout the summer. Every venue must be submitted as a separate application on its own to get approved because every venue has different criteria about sustainability. Every venue has a different use of cleaning products and a different system about how to separate the garbage.

I am very happy we got every venue and event approved for this year! It took us the entire ten months to process all of our applications. We know that with everything we are creating, we must be sustainable and we are constantly working on how to do this better. For example, we only use recycled paper, and we offer guests and artists public transportation. There is always a way to do better and we want this way moving forward. I remember back in the day we shuttled guests to the airport by car, but now we recommend everyone to take the train. So, it’s a big step for us to be a Green Event this year for our first year!

OW: Is there anything we haven’t covered yet that you want readers to know about the Innsbruck Festival?

EMS: I want to talk about Early Music and this cliché about Early Music being “old”. In German it is called “Alten Musik,” so this is literally saying “Old Music”, and this is a lot of the reason why most people think Early Music is boring and old. But, this is not true. The Innsbruck Festival is an example of this. We have a very young team, with our youngest team member being 24, and I’m nearly the oldest. During the summer we also work with over 40 students. So, we are a young team and we are organizing this festival where even on stage there are so many young people. This is really important to me, a mission of mine to explain this to everyone about how Early Music is exciting and vibrant and alive. We experienced a new project actually that featured break dancers, dancing to Early Music. These young dancers, maybe for their first time, danced to Early Music and afterwards I overheard them whistling back the melodies they had just danced to. It was so nice to hear these cool kids doing this because it shows how Early Music can be right now. The audience was also young and this may have been their first time to step foot in the theater. This is a memory I will forever cherish. These moments where Early Music begins with a connection and keeps expanding from there is my mission for being here.

OW: I felt the excitement just by being in the audience for the Cesti Vocal rounds this year and wondered who the young audience members around me knew and what they knew about Early Music. I wish I had experiences like this when I was younger. Do you foresee opportunities here at the Innsbruck Festival for young people to have a chance to come here from the States?

EMS: I am always open to new ideas that involve people who are not involved at the moment. This is also why we created Young Baroque, where we invite youth ensembles from all over Europe to come and play together here in workshops with musicians from the festival. I think the youngest has been 11 years old this year. This is also a tradition for the festival because the origin of the Innsbruck Festival is a series of masterclasses. So this is where we are coming from and I am open and excited to expand upon where we are going.