Austria is the country where Mozart sits in a coffee house, while cows yodel outside and a schnitzel plays its part on the drums somewhere. While it is unclear who first coined the phrase, the fact remains that when people think of Austria, they often think of music – and when they think of music, they often think of Vienna and the waltz. However, Austria is much bigger than it looks on the map. From Viennese songs (Wienerlied) and Austropop to Krowodnrock, Carinthian choirs, Styrian harmonicas, Dudler (a hybrid form of yodelling and coloratura singing) and Schrammel music, not to mention Alpine traditions, Austria has numerous musical styles rooted in its regions that have long since opened to the world.

At the end of the 1980s, 'new folk music' shook the entire republic. But even before that, tradition and defiance often formed an exciting blend. The country's culture and language are diverse, shaped by the Alpine and Danube regions, Balkan influences, and border areas. As well as 'Austrian Standard German', Croatian, Slovenian and Hungarian are also recognised as official languages in certain regions. These are ideal conditions for a vibrant folk and world music scene. The way in which traditional music opens up to jazz, pop, electronic music and other genres sounds astonishingly like the future. So, once again, we are attempting the impossible: capturing the grandiose whole in a single weekend.