2021 would not only have been Tobi Reiser’s 75th birthday, the 75th performance of the Salzburg Advent Singing should also have taken place this Advent. An anniversary that Salzburg would have liked to celebrate – but the pandemic thwarted the bill.
The Salzburg Advent Singing had to be canceled for the second time due to the pandemic. This year this would have wanted to take up unity and peace in the play on the occasion of recent events. The Salzburg Advent Singing was initiated shortly after the Second World War. What began as a small, private concert is now part of the country’s pre-Christmas tradition. Reiser, the younger, took over his father’s life’s work at the age of less than 30 years after the death of his father. A life’s work that ignored the wishes of modern times and firmly anchored folk songs in Salzburg without causing a stir and without celebrities. Tobi Reiser already worked as a young boy as a shepherd boy and took over the leadership of the Advent singing in 1974. In the following 25 years he not only created a cross-link between classical and folk music, but also brought complex and critical voices to the stage. He dared to take the step and lived on his father’s wish: to cultivate the Salzburg folk culture and to connect it with Salzburg. Until his death in 1999, Advent singing was the focus of his life and he can still be seen today as the innovator of this event. Even if a shadow hangs over the Advent singing due to the Nazi past and personal problems of the two Reisers, it belongs despite and because of the two Still a cultural asset of Salzburg today. Although the 75th anniversary had to be canceled this year, the organizers are looking hopefully to the next Advent in 2022.
source site-12