Ernst Molden und die Wiener Concertschrammeln (AUT)
The album project MEI LIAB is devoted entirely and exclusively to the love song, marking a unique first-time collaboration with the Neue Wiener Concert Schrammeln. Consisting of violinists Peter Uhler and Nikolai Tunkowitsch, legendary Viennese button accordion master Walther Soyka, and contra-guitarist and bandleader Peter Havlicek, the ensemble brings together sensitive modernizers of the classical Viennese folk tradition and outstanding arrangers alongside Ernst Molden.
Their collaboration began after the death of Willi Resetarits, when Ernst Molden stepped in to perform with the Schrammeln in place of the late singer. This was followed by a series of concerts in Vienna and across Austria, culminating—at least for the time being—in their joint appearance as part of André Heller's Vienna Evening at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie in March 2024.
The MEI LIAB cycle combines eight newly written love songs by Molden with four earlier works, some of them already iconic. Following the great loss of Walther Soyka in the spring of 2025, Marie-Theres Stickler—known, among other projects, for her work with Alma—has now taken over on accordion.
The sense of belonging within a band, a feeling Molden has often described in interviews as a source of great happiness, is something we will experience and celebrate at the closing concert of Jazz&theCity 2026.
Artist
Ernst Molden und die Wiener Concertschrammeln (AUT)
The love song—or, in Viennese dialect, affectionately and irreverently referred to as a Hadern (“rag”)—has long been a cornerstone of the work of singer-songwriter and poet Ernst Molden. This has been especially true since the 1990s, when he attended Nick Cave’s class at Vienna’s School of Poetry. In a seminar entitled The Lovesong and How to Write One, Cave told his students that there was no nobler art form than writing a love song.
Molden once remarked in an interview with Ö1: “For decades now, I’ve basically been writing songs in the hope that one and the same woman will think I’m cool.” Good for that woman—but even better for the rest of us.
And what could be more fitting for a programme called Stories, dedicated to bringing the urban song traditions of the world’s great cities to Salzburg, than the blues- and jazz-inflected songs of the Viennese Wienerlied and one of its most celebrated contemporary voices, Ernst Molden?
Location
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Residenzplatz 1
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