Porgy & Bess

The non-profit organisation Porgy & Bess, founded in 1993, defines itself as a Jazz & Music Club with a pluralistic and multifaceted programme. It serves as a site for musical encounters, interaction and confrontation both for artists and audience. The main focus lies on the implementation of a structure that takes into consideration Austria’s (jazz) scene’s wide range of ways to articulate itself as well as new development perspectives, such as collaborations with international guest musicians. Moreover, a club that serves as a meeting point for the creative local scene offers the possibility to exchange experience while transcending stylistic and aesthetic boundaries – a testing ground for different projects that do not need to present "ultimate statements“, a place for constant labouring and development. A basic intention of Porgy & Bess is to encourage cooperations between local musicians with different artistic backgrounds in order to prevent "musical ghettoisation“.

In the past decades Europe’s jazz scene has managed to definitely establish itself as an independent and innovative force in jazz. Defining itself as a European jazz club, it is understood that P&B presents creative European contemporary music. Cooperations with our partners in the European club scene (Moods/Zurich, Jazzhouse/Copenhagen, Stadtgarten/Cologne, Unterfahrt/Munich, AMR/Geneva, Bimhuis/Amsterdam ...) and the international festival scene (Le Mans, Moers, Berlin ...) highlight different categories of concepts of improvised music from other countries. Especially close contacts with promoters and musicians from the former Eastern bloc (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Russia, Estonia, Serbia-Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, ...) lead to international cultural exchanges (see also festival series "Step across the border“).

Historically, Jazz is defined as Afro-American music, and still the "motherland of jazz“ continues to provide innovational impulses – two good reasons for us to present renowed American solo artists as well as the "next generation“ of jazz.