Hardly any rehearsals with music bands, choirs or folk dancers, no concerts, no festivals: the pandemic has also slowed popular culture. But despite all the uncertainty, planning for 2022 is in full swing.
An app is currently being developed to network the clubs and their 120,000 members in Upper Austria. “Each association gets an area in which to present itself,” says Sandra Ohms, who is driving the project. In addition to an event calendar, tools such as a tone tuner are also planned. The app is financed from a special grant for cultural initiatives from the state and federal government.
After two postponements, there is now a new date for the festival of folk culture: September 23rd to 25th. Molln will remain the venue, confirms Mayor Andreas Rußmann. But he does not want to postpone the festival again: “Then another congregation should come into play.” The authors Marlen Haushofer and Otto Jungmair, both born in Molln, and the jew’s harp craft typical of Molln will be presented.
The choir association wants to try out new formats this year: In addition to the Long Night of Choirs in Wels, which has been postponed twice on May 25, there will be “Singing with a View” for the first time this year, combining hiking with singing, for example on July 21 in the Steinbrecherhaus Perg. The brass band is planning an orchestral scoring game at the music fair in Ried in May after the conductor’s day planned in the OÖN forum had to be canceled on the weekend.
There are personnel cuts in the Volksliedwerk: President Elisabeth Freundlinger and Chairwoman Christa Bumberger-Pauska resign from their positions at the General Assembly on February 9th. “There should be a generation change,” says Freundlinger, without naming successor candidates. Only this much: The successor should be significantly younger and a woman, which suggests that Sandra Ohms, active board member, could be given a key role.
The amateur theater association is celebrating 70 years this year with several “Theaterkirtagen” (including on April 9th in Linz). On the occasion of the 220th birthday of Franz Stelzhamer, the Stelzhamerbund announces a competition for dialect prose texts in autumn.
But the mood is not so rosy everywhere. Some officials fear that some clubs could dissolve after Corona. Herbert Scheiböck, President of the Folk Culture Forum, looks ahead: “Folk culture lives from the community. We hope that it will soon be possible again.”
Source: Nachrichten
