Since 2021, our constantly growing team has been busy founding and creating a festival that emerged from St. Pölten's application for the title of "European Capital of Culture". In a joint effort, the governments of the province of Lower Austria and the city of St. Pölten have provided a budget for a follow-up project. The result is Tangente St. Pölten - Festival for Contemporary Culture.

"We want to establish a festival for contemporary culture. Nothing more, nothing less."

Christoph Gurk

Every day many people travel to St. Pölten – mainly from Vienna, Linz and Lower Austria. Because they have work to do, because they now live here. Things are just more relaxed here than in the big city.

Next year there will be another good reason to visit the capital of Lower Austria. For six months, St. Pölten will be even more of a destination for people who love culture. From 30 April to 6 October you can experience the first edition of Tangente - Festival for Contemporary Culture.

Come to St. Pölten – and experience a diverse programme, across the disciplines: theatre, visual arts, performance, literature, music, science.

The programme will be worth visiting for several days at a time. We hope that you will already mark dates in your calendar, book tickets and look forward to the hospitality of our team and the people in and around St. Pölten.

You know: St. Pölten is always close to you!

With best regards,
Christoph Gurk
Artistic Director of the Tangente

Christoph Gurk was born in Ratingen/Germany. He studied German and Philosophy in Hamburg. In the 1990s, he was editor-in-chief of the cultural magazine "Spex" in Cologne before moving into curatorial work at steirischer herbst in Graz. He then worked at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, the HAU Hebbel am Ufer, both in Berlin, and the Münchner Kammerspiele. He curated music programmes for the Centraltheater in Leipzig and for Ruhrtriennale in Gelsenkirchen. From 2019 to 2021, he worked as a dramaturge and member of the artistic direction at the Volkstheater in Vienna. Since 2020 he has been the Artistic Director of Tangente St. Pölten. When he is not working, he enjoys exploring the secrets of Sichuan cuisine.