This spring, the association “Voice of Diversity” is once again organizing one of the most important annual events for the Roma: On April 8th and 9th, the INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE ROMA will be celebrated in Vienna’s Porgy & Bess with a top-class panel discussion and an impressive artistic program, because this year there is also an important anniversary to celebrate: 30 years of recognition of the Roma as an ethnic group in Austria!
On December 16, 1993, the Roma were recognized as the sixth ethnic group in Austria by unanimous decision in the Main Committee of the National Council. The term “Roma ethnic group” is the generic term for the various Roma living in Austria.
The recognition of the Roma as an ethnic group is considered a milestone in Austrian legal history, the end point of a history of persecution that lasted several hundred years, the high point of Austrian minority policy and the beginning of a European success story of Austrian Roma policy.
The top-class panel discussion on the occasion of the International Roma Day on April 8, 2023 deals with the socio-economic changes in the living conditions of the Roma. What has happened in the last 30 years since the Roma were recognized as an ethnic group? Do we have a reason to celebrate?
With regard to the Roma strategy and the EU framework (2020), which were already decided in 2010, the question arises to what extent the process of equality, inclusion and participation of the Roma has taken place in the EU member states? Does the majority of the population see us as a natural part of Austrian culture and society, or are we still strangers? What is the value of the self-esteem of the ethnic group today? Do you still hide if for some reason declaring yourself Roma/nya would have been disadvantageous?
The association Voice of Diversity will try to answer all these questions on April 8, 2023 with a top-class panel discussion entitled “30. Anniversary” to answer.
8.4. ON THE PODIUM (6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.)
Dieter Halwachs (sociolinguist)
Dieter W. Halwachs is a sociolinguist specializing in language politics and minorities. Until his retirement (October 2022) he was head of the research area Plurilingualism at meeting point languages of the University of Graz. Halwachs worked as a coordinator for various projects on the language and culture of the Roma. As the Austrian representative, he worked on the expert committee of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe.
Emmerich (Charly) Gärtner-Horvath
Emmerich (Charly) Gärtner-Horvath is chairman of the advisory board for the ethnic groups and chairman of the Roma Service association. Since 2001 he has been working as a freelancer for ORF Burgenland (Roma editorial team). Gärtner-Horvath is also a board member and contributor to Radio MORA (contributor to the Romani Ora radio show). Since 1996 he has worked in the department for ethical groups in the Diocese of Eisenstadt. He is also one of the co-founders and one of the first chairmen of the adult education center for the Burgenland Roma, a member of Forum 4 PPH-Burgenland, a member of the advisory board of the permanent advisory board of the Education Directorate for Burgenland and, since 1996, a member of the advisory board for the ethnic groups of the Roma.
Erika Thurner (political scientist and historian)
Until 2016, Erika Thurner was a professor at the Institute for Political Science at the Univ. Innsbruck. She has published contemporary history and political science publications on Roma and other minorities and is also involved in party, national and feminist research. Lecturer at the Universities of Linz, Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg. Since the 1980s she has been coordinating activities for the social and material recognition of the Roma as victims of National Socialism.
Mirjam Karoly (political scientist and member of the advisory board for Roma)
Mirjam Karoly is a political scientist and graduated in 1996 with a thesis on the recognition process of the Roma in Austria. From 1996 to 2004 she worked for the Romano Centro association, an association that was founded in Vienna in 1991 and has also campaigned internationally for Roma rights from the start. From 2013 to 2017 Karoly was the Head of the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues at the OSCE/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw.
From 2007 to 2009 she worked as a Senior Communities Adviser with the OSCE Field Mission in Kosovo focusing on minority rights and the return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced persons, particularly Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians. Karoly is a member of the Austrian Ethnic Group Advisory Council for Roma, honorary member of the Romano Centro association, member of the Austrian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (expert on the Nazi Genocide Committee on the Roma). Mirjam Karoly is currently employed as office manager at the Wiener Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies
Ursula Hemetek (ethno-musicologist, Wittgenstein Prize winner)
Ursula Hemetek is director of the Music and Minorities Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. From 2011 to 2022 she was head of the Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology, from 2017 to 2021 Secretary General of the ICTM (International Council for Traditional Music). In 1987 she received her doctorate in musicology from the University of Vienna, and in 2001 she habilitated there in ethnomusicology. In 2018 she was the first ethnomusicologist to receive the Wittgenstein Prize. Her research focuses on music from minorities in Austria, especially Roma, Burgenland Croats and Bosnians as well as migrants in Vienna and refugee movements. In 1991 she co-founded the Minorities Initiative and the Romano Centro association and did diverse cultural work in the minority area. Her numerous publications can be assigned to the field of ethnomusicology.
Storytelling with concert: ROMA FAIRY TALES & ROMA MUSIC (20.30-22.00)
Michael Köhlmeier (narrator) & Harri Stojka Ensemble
Stories of the Roma in literary and musical language – not only the musical aspect of the storytelling, but also the narrative aspect of the music-making is perfectly harmonized here. Michael Köhlmeier has selected a few fairy tales from Milena Hübschmannova’s collection and understands like no other how to interpret them, vary them and bring them back to life through the rhythm of language. On the other hand, the selected songs themselves tell stories, even if one does not speak the Roma language. The language of music is universal.
Michael Köhlmeier
Writer, was born in 1949. He studied German and political science and has published numerous novels. In 2018, a volume of speeches against forgetting “Don’t expect me to play dumb” was released. Michael Köhlmeier has received many awards, including the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize in 2017 and the Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize for his complete works, and the Ferdinand Berger Prize in 2019.
Harri Stojka
has achieved something that many wish for – to create his own guitar style and to be recognizable as Harri Stojka after just a few notes in the soloist. What characterizes Harri Stojka’s guitar playing is his grandiose virtuosity paired with a blues feeling, the special drive, the phrasing and the sound of his guitar.
Harri Stojka Ensemble: Harri Stojka: Guitar / Patrizia Ferrara: Vocals / Mariia Tarnavska: Vocals / Geri Schuller: Keyboard, Piano / Peter Strutzenberger: Bass / Andi Steirer: Percussion / Sigi Meier: Drums
Special: ROMA DAY AFTER PARTY / KSŠŠD (10 p.m.)
1070 Vienna; Mondscheingasse 11; Info Instagram @hoer.oesterreich, free entry!
Line-Up: DJ Makaveli | DJ Adrialin | DJ Aylean
To round off the International Roma Day, the Austrian Rom*nja student body is organizing the After Party on April 8th with live DJs and drinks. As the youngest generation of the ethnic group, the HÖR celebrates the achievements of those Rom*nja and Sinti*zze who fought for recognition in 1993.
(Admission: 9 p.m./Start: 10 p.m.)
9.4. CONCERT / Porgy & Bess (8.30pm-10.00pm)
Alan Bartuš – BORN IN MILLENNIUM feat. Gregory Hutchinson
Alan Bartuš: Klavier / Stefan Pišta Bartuš: Double bass / Gregory Hutchinson: Schlagzeug
BORN IN MILLENNIUM is a powerful and energetic acoustic jazz project by young Roma musician Alan Bartuš. The imaginative original compositions of the 21-year-old Neusiedler, who won the Ö1 jazz scholarship in 2022, are a powerful fusion of Latin, classical and free music melodies. The joy of making music and the mutual intimacy between father (Stefan Pišta Bartuš/ double bass) and son (Alan Bartuš/ piano) accompanied by the legendary drummer Gregory Hutchinson, who is world-renowned for his very own expression of rhythms, gives the music its unmistakable expression. The extraordinary interpretative interaction between the band members is a dynamic process of conveying messages through the symbiosis of sounds, promising ultimate musical enjoyment. The April 9th concert at Porgy & Bess is the CD presentation of BORN IN MILLENNIUM.
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Link:
Voice of Diversity
Porgy & Bess