Foto: Wolfgang Mayer

Carola Dertnig

Artist Carola Dertnig, born in Innsbruck, is professor of performative art at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where she has headed the department of the same name since 2006. In 1997 she took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, and in 2008 she was a visiting professor at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Los Angeles. She studied at the Vienna University of Applied Arts and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Dertnig’s internationally recognized artistic performance practice derives from a visual arts background. She works with performance, video, and photography, as well as installation-based and sculptural settings. Her work comprises not only live performances in public spaces, but also pictorial works including drawings, collages, and photographs.
Her works have been exhibited at numerous international museums and art institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 (New York); mumok – Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation Vienna and the Secession (Vienna); REDCAT CalArts (Los Angeles); and Landesgalerie Niederösterreich (Krems). In 2024, the OK Linz honored her with the midcareer exhibition Dancing Through Life and an accompanying publication.
Dertnig won numerous awards, such as the Prize of the City of Vienna for the Visual Arts (2007) and the Tyrolean State Art Prize (2009); she was the first woman performance artist to receive the Austrian Art Prize for the Visual Arts (2013).

Foto: Peter Gannushkin

Susanna Gartmayer

Susanna Gartmayer studied painting and printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and, since the early 2000s, has been active as a bass clarinetist and composer in various fields of experimental music. She is both a member and founder of numerous ensembles for improvised and organized music. She is particularly interested in the polyphonic sound spectrum of low clarinets, in open forms of composition, multi-idiomatic improvisation, as well as the theory and practice of collaborative working processes.
Since 2015 Gartmayer has acted as organizer of the Monday Improvisers Session together with Thomas Berghammer and Didi Kern, a meeting place for improvisers from Vienna and around the world.

Foto: Valentina Belej Son

Alja Klemenc

Alja Klemenc, a Slovenian conductor from Cerknica, is currently pursuing her master’s degree in conducting at the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music in Klagenfurt and her postgraduate studies in contemporary repertoire at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano.
As an assistant conductor she had the opportunity to participate in the performance of Helmut Lachenmann’s My Melodies with the Slovenian Philharmonic and in the production of Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus with the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra. In the season 2024/25 she was invited to collaborate with the Slovenian Philharmonic, when she performed the work Voie by Vinko Globokar with orchestra and choir and conducted works by Slovenian composers for the family subscription program.
Klemenc enhanced her musicianship in international master classes with such renowned conductors as Colin Metters, Douglas Bostock, Michalis Economou, Georg Mark, Günter Neuhold, and others.
In 2022, Alja established the Alma Mahler Musikverein and ensemble of the same name, which devotes itself to the performance of classical and contemporary music in fresh, innovative formats. The Alma Mahler Musikverein strives to continue the gifted musician’s legacy by creating innovative and educational projects that integrate painting, literature, and architecture with music.

Foto: Marco Sau

Marco Sau

Coming from Bergamo, Marco Sau began his studies with the Italian musician Alberto Sonzogni and later continued them with Alberto Foresti. In 2018 he also took up studies in composition with Francesco Chigioni in his native city. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s courses in piano at the Conservatorio di Musica di Castelfranco Veneto A. Steffani and at the Conservatorio di Musica Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco in Verona, both under Massimiliano Ferrati. Currently, he is completing his master’s studies in composition under Matteo Franceschini and Andrea Mattevi and is additionally involved in a second master’s program in composition with Hakan Ulus at the Gustav Mahler Private University of Music in Klagenfurt, where Marco Sau now lives.
He attended master courses offered by such renowned artists as Alessandro Solbiati, Alexandra Karastoyanova-Hermentin, Pierluigi Billone, Giorgio Colombo Taccani, Jeffrey Swann, Massimiliano Ferrati, Dina Yoffe, and Gabriela Meyer. His music was performed by mdi ensemble and MotoContrario Ensemble. He appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in many Italian and European cities, including Leipzig, Utrecht, Ossiach, Venice, Padua, Verona, and Bergamo.
The young composer and musician is the winner of several competitions, both as a soloist (18th Padova International Music Competition, 1st National Città di Cremona Music Competition) and as a chamber musician (7th Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado Competition). In 2021 he participated in Gioachino Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia in Cortina d’Ampezzo as répétiteur. In 2023 and 2024 he was engaged as piano accompanist for the 5th and 6th editions of the City of Belluno International Music Competition.

Foto: Gerhard Maurer

section.a, Co-Kurator*innen, Projektorganisation

Since 2001, we have been conceptualizing and realizing exhibitions and projects at the intersection of art, society, and science. With a curious and reflective approach, we create spaces for dialogue and new perspectives. Our focus lies on curation and production, from the initial idea to the spatial realization. We collaborate with private, public, institutional, and independent partners both nationally and internationally. But no matter what or with whom – joy runs through all our projects. Over the past 25 years, we have realized more than 145 projects with over 300 artists.
section.a is: Julia Bildstein, Katharina Boesch, Christine Haupt-Stummer and Andreas Krištof

Foto: Mahler Foundation

Morten Solvik

Morten Solvik is a Norwegian-American musicologist and international educator based in Vienna, Austria. He received a Bachelor of Arts in music and intellectual history at Cornell University and a Ph.D. in musicology at the University of Pennsylvania with a dissertation on Gustav Mahler. His areas of research also include Anton Bruckner and Franz Schubert, among others. He has taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts and played an instrumental role in developing the Department of Music at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna starting in 1999, where he served as Center Director between 2009 and 2022; since then, he has held the positions of Dean and Liaison to the Provost for IES Abroad. He is active as an author, book editor, speaker, host and producer of webcasts, and contributor to productions for radio and television. Solvik serves on the board of the International Gustav Mahler Society and as Vice President of the Mahler Foundation. He is co-initiator and artistic director of the Gustav Mahler Festival in Steinbach am Attersee and, together with Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, of the Mahler Forum for Music and Society, Klagenfurt.

Foto: Katharina Gossow

Tamara Štajner

Tamara Štajner, who was born in Novo mesto in Slovenia, grew up in Krško and has lived and worked in Vienna since 2006. She graduated from the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts as a master in viola performance and additionally studied philosophy at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. She performs both as a soloist and in numerous orchestras and chamber music ensembles. As a visual artist, Tamara Štajner works in the fields of video, performance, photography, and sound. She is also a writer of short stories and poetry.
Tamara Štajner is the winner of national and international music competitions. She received numerous scholarships for her artistic work, including multiple Work Stipends for Literature and START Scholarships for Music and Performing Arts awarded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art and Culture. Tamara Štajner was honored as a scholarship holder of the 25th Klagenfurt Literature Course at the 2022 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. In 2024 she won the Meran Poetry Award and that same year presented her literary work at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize at the invitation of Brigitte Schwens-Harrant. Tamara Štajner received the KELAG Prize for reading her text Luft nach unten [Breathing Room on the Downside].
In 2023, the author published her novel Raupenfell [Caterpillar’s Skin], which as followed by the volume of poetry Schlupflöcher [Loopholes], both of which appeared with Das Wunderhorn in Heidelberg, as well as numerous contributions to magazines and anthologies. In spring 2026, her first novel in Slovenian, Goseničji kožuh, appeared with Beletrina. In autumn 2026, Štajners’s second novel in German, Luft nach unten [Breathing Room on the Downside] will be published by Zsolnay-Hanser.

Foto: Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein

Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein

Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein is a curator, art historian, and professor at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She heads several research projects, such as the Cathrin Pichler Archive for Art and Sciences (CPA) and The Dissident Goddesses’ Network. Her expansive teaching, research, lecturing, and exhibition activities focus on contemporary art, modern art, arts-based research, and feminist theory and art practice. In 2019 she was curator of the Austrian Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. She is a member of the curatorial board of the mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien and a board member of
the international Christine Lavant Society. Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein is the author and editor of numerous texts and publications. She is the initiator and together with section.a artistic director of the Mahler Forum for Music and Society, Klagenfurt.