To mark this year’s anniversary, we invite you to four discussions in the festival centre and at Forum Stadtpark. Together we will remember key artistic and political moments and above all the social coordinates in which they were realised, subjected to animosity and celebrated. After all, steirischer herbst has always been a seismograph of shifts in the sociopolitical climate – both in Graz and internationally.

To kick off the series of discussions, we invite you to Forum Stadtpark to examine its role in the context of the foundation of the herbst festival and the years in which Christine Frisinghelli was director, 1996 – 1999: a discussion about the festival’s position in the city. In addition to Christine Frisinghelli, guests include the director of Forum Stadtpark Heidrun Primas, Veronica Kaup-Hasler and Martin Behr, who will present the “herbstbuch”.

The following Sunday we welcome you to a matinée at the festival centre. Together with former herbst president Kurt Jungwirth, we delve into the eventful history of steirischer herbst, in which he played a key role in shaping and which he defended through numerous crises as of 1970.

With Thomas Trenkler we take a look at the period beginning in 1985, one which – as press spokesman of the festival and as a cultural journalist – he experienced and wrote critically about like almost no other. The focus is on the question of how the public image of steirischer herbst has changed over the years.

On the third weekend, steirischer herbst's role a “festival that explores the times” will be taken a look at while the special importance of music within it gets analysed.

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