Franui Musicbanda

Franui is the name of a very specific alpine meadow in the small East Tyrolean village of Innervillgraten, 1,402 metres above sea level, where most of the musicians from Franui grew up. The word is of Rhaeto-Romanic (Romansh) origin, and refers to the geographical proximity of Innervillgraten to the Ladin-speaking region in the Dolomites.

The musicians of the Musicbanda of the same name have been playing together in nearly the same lineup since 1993. The ensemble regularly appears at renowned concert venues and international festivals, including the Vienna Konzerthaus and Burgtheater, the Salzburg and Bregenz Festivals, the Ruhrtriennale, the Berlin State Opera, the Munich Opera Festival, the Isarphilharmonie in Munich, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Schauspielhaus in Zurich, the Holland Festival, the Klarafestival in Brussels and the Philharmonie de Paris.

The ensemble’s new interpretations of Lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Mahler have earned Musicbanda Franui fame beyond the borders of Austria. The ensemble regards itself as a ‘transformer station between classical music, folk music, jazz and contemporary chamber music’. Sometimes the classical original is lovingly celebrated in all its beauty; sometimes it’s turned upside up (or down), stripped down to the bare bones, enhanced, painted over and further developed. The boundaries between interpretation, improvisation, arrangement and (re-)composition blur.

Both in their concerts and in their music theatre productions the musicians often team up with outstanding stage partners such as the singer Florian Boesch, the author Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan, the Viennese acoustic duo Die Strottern, the mask-theatre ensemble Familie Flöz, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, the video artist Jonas Dahlberg, the cabaret duo Maschek and the actors Regina Fritsch, Dörte Lyssewski, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Wolfram Berger and the late Peter Simonischek.

Since 2015 Franui has been in charge of programming the festival Gemischter Satz, which is hosted by the Vienna Konzerthaus annually in May, and which presents new forms of interaction between music, visual arts, literature and wine.

Franui’s recordings are released with the label col legno and have won several prizes (e. g. the German Record Critics’ Award). On the occasion of their 30th anniversary the Musicbanda hosted a three-day ‘High Culture Festival’, which drew some 6,000 visitors to the Unterstaller Alm (1,673 meters above sea level) in Innervillgraten.