Fritz Pauer Legacy Quintet
The former "New Fritz Pauer Quintet" opens this festival with a new line-up featuring Erwin Schmidt, a former student of Pauer, on piano. The diverse sonic possibilities of the quintet instrumentation found insiration in Pauer's countless compositions, not least through his decades of work in the Art Farmer Quintet. The suite "African Impressions" consists of thirteen finely crafted contemporary jazz tunes and was written in 2011, inspired by two trips to Africa. The strong jazz content and the, in contrast, only subtly resounding, cautiously used "Africanisms", may also be conceptually reminiscent of Duke Ellington's "Far East Suite". The result is pure Pauer jazz. Hakuna Matata!


Philipp Jagschitz Trio & Studio Dan Strings
In 1999 Pauer began to compose intensively for his project "Fritz Pauer Trio meets the "Apollon String Quartet". The Burgenland pianist Philipp Jagschitz wrote a highly informative master's thesis on Fritz Pauer's musical vita. The Philipp Jagschitz Trio together with the Studio Dan Strings will perform selected samples of it. Energetic jazz trio and virtuoso string quartet features will round out the set to a festive multi-course meal.

Karl Ratzer & Ed Neumeister Quartet
The musical friendship between Fritz Pauer and Karl Ratzer goes back a long way and lasted a lifetime. The friendship with Ed Neumeister resulted from the teaching activities of both at the KUG and was sealed forever after a sensational duo concert. Both Grand Seigneurs du Jazz, as well as drummer Howard Curtis, look back on unforgettable concerts with Fritz Pauer and can count themselves fortunate regarding about masterfully successful joint recordings with him. A quartet of absolute grandmasters - "Splendid Bandits" to quote a tune by Pauer dedicated to Karl Ratzer - closes the first day of the festival.