INTRODUCTION

Austria is known for its rich and world-famous traditional cultural heritage, but it also boasts a lively, young, creative and innovative contemporary culture. The mission of the Austrian Embassies and Cultural Fora is to support those young emerging Austrian contemporary artists and present their achievements in the fields of arts and science to the world.

The Department of International Cultural Policy of Austria's Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs (BMEIA) has developed a number of grants and programs supporting young Austrian artists, for example in the field of music, literature and film. The Austrian cultural network abroad uses these programs as an inspiration and guidance for their programing, unified in their goal to help the young artists to establish international contacts and make themselves known as well as to provide a platform for dialogue and intercultural exchange with other artists around the world.

HERE A SELECTION OF THESE PROGRAMS:

THE NEW AUSTRIAN SOUND OF MUSIC

The New Austrian Sound of Music – in short NASOM  – is a long-term sponsorship program by the BMEIA, promoting young Austrian musicians. The aim of NASOM is to offer support for international performances of promising young talents with the help of a global network of Embassies, Cultural Fora and General Consulates. A further objective of NASOM is to draw more attention to the fact that Austrian music creation – beyond the traditional – is as vibrant, modern and culturally diverse as ever. The young artists accepted for this program are selected in cooperation with the Music Information Center Austria (mica), the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw), the Mozarteum University Salzburg, the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna (MUK), the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (KUG), the Anton Bruckner Private University in Upper Austria, as well as local music event organizers and music journalists. Here once again, young emerging musicians from the genres classical, jazz, world, contemporary and pop music were chosen to participate in this sponsorship program.

Now in its seventh edition the NASOM program for 2020/2021 was extended to 2022 due to the COVID pandemic. On Tuesday, September 29, 2020, five exciting up-and-coming acts that were nominated for The New Austrian Sound of Music – NASOM 2020/2021 performed live at Vienna’s Porgy&Bess. Discover Austria’s emerging Jazz and World Music scene and enjoy these great artists!

Watch the concert here.

SCHREIBART AUSTRIA

The Department of International Cultural Policy of the BMEIA has furthermore developed a special literature program, called schreibART AUSTRIA, recommending a new generation of Austrian writers to a broad international audience. The international network of the Austrian cultural offices with its almost 94 Cultural Fora, Embassies and General Consulates, who all do cultural work, is supposed to act as bridge-builder for the writes to enter into an international cultural dialogue around the world. With the help of four well-known literature experts of Austria, a total of twenty Austrian authors, ranging from the prose, lyric and drama field, have been selected to be included in this publication, broadly representing the Austrian literature world in its entire diversity.

 

AUSTRIAN SHORT FILM SERIES/ÖSTERREICHISCHEN KURZFILMSCHAU

The cooperation established in 2012 between the BMEIA and the Academy of the Austrian Film/Akademie des Österreichischen Films has been very successful for years. The selected short-films, many of them from young directors recently graduated from film schools, are being shown worldwide through the network of the Austrian international cultural institutions. Here the brochures to the "Austrian Short Film Series" of the past years: 

"Hello, I am ..." – YOUNG AUSTRIAN ARTISTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

#HelloIam #YoungArtistsATinDC

We are very excited to kick-off our special social media project "Hello, I am …" on April 9, 2018!

Throughout the year we will present six remarkable students from Austria’s three leading art universities: the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the University of Art and Design Linz!

Five female and one male student – two students of each university – have been selected and will present their work on our social media outlets (Facebook | @acfdc, Instagram | @ACFWashington & Twitter | @ACFWashington), our website (www.acfdc.org), and in our newsletters. Each student will be presented individually for the duration of five weeks. During this time you have the chance to participate in this contest by voting for the young artists – each reaction is one vote and gets the student one click closer to present his or her art in Washington DC. So please share as many views and reactions as possible with us! 

After each of the young artists has been individually presented, we will open the ballot for one more week in November 2018, presenting all six of them at the same time and thus allowing for a final comparison. These votes will be added to the previously given “likes, shares & comments” during each respective previous five-weeks-voting period. 

Get ready to like, click, share, comment & post – every reaction counts. Let your clicks be the paving stone of the path to a student’s very own exhibition in Washington DC!