The canton of Uri has always been a place of transit - more precisely, since the opening of the Gotthard mule track. People from different cultures have met here for centuries, cut off from each other by high mountains and connected by mountain passes. Where traders and goods, languages and cultures pass by, the international music festival "Alpentöne" takes place every two years.
The festival invites musicians from all the countries of the Alpine arc, from Slovenia to the Occitania region. They come from the Bavarian Pre-Alps and the Lombardy plains, from Tyrol and Appenzell, from the Engadine and Piedmont, from Munich, Milan and Marseille. Sometimes they also come from further afield, from the Pyrenees or Scandinavia. Alpine culture is not just a geographical phenomenon, it is a cultural one: the joy of tradition and the desire to turn it on its head, to shake it out and reorganise it, can be found everywhere. That, we think, is alpine.
The musical material of the many musicians from different folk cultures, from jazz, pop, new music and classical music utilises the extensive and subtle, stylistically diverse musical tradition of the Alpine countries as a focal point. But their personal sound memory is also their fund. Many develop completely new ideas of an Alpine sound culture. And where could it be better realised than where the mixture of north and south has always been part of the recipe - in Uri?