Image: Maki Namekawa, Cori O’Lan - Photo: tom mesic. Ars Electronica, Linz.
Ars Electronica’s ‘Big Concert Night 2026’ will bring concerts and performances to Posthof in Linz on 11 September, presenting the festival’s programme as a multimedia Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Beginning at 6.30pm, the event will unfold across three stages, with audiences moving between contrasting performances during the evening.
The programme is structured around works that will be performed several times, allowing visitors to move between the stages rather than follow a single fixed sequence. The announced works are ‘Orbit – A War Series’ by composer Brigitta Muntendorf, ‘Polaris’ by pianist Maki Namekawa and Cori O’Lan, featuring music by Philip Glass, and ‘PULS’ by Daniel Haas.
‘Orbit – A War Series’ is identified in the programme as a work by Muntendorf, while the festival’s newsletter pairs the piece with an image credit to Andrea Avezzù. No further production or performance details are provided in the supplied material. The listing similarly gives no additional description of ‘Polaris’ or ‘PULS’, beyond naming their creators and, in the case of ‘Polaris’, Glass’s music.
The concert night forms part of the 2026 Ars Electronica Festival, which will run in Linz from 9 to 13 September under the theme ‘Negotiating Humanity’. Ars Electronica says the five-day festival will be distributed across three festival hubs, with exhibitions, conferences, workshops, performances and other events. The Big Concert Night is scheduled for the Friday of the festival and will take place at Posthof for the first time this year.
The festival’s wider programme places the concert within an environment combining media art, performance and experimental music. Its official opening on 9 September is scheduled for St Mary’s Cathedral, where the programme will include performances by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, the Company of Music, cathedral organist Gerhard Raab, TANZ LINZ, and Japanese artists evala and Ayako Tanaka. Other festival projects include ‘Flood the Zone with Courage’, an interactive public-space programme in Linz’s Main Square, and ‘Living Archives’ presentations in Deep Space 8K at the Ars Electronica Center.
A separate Ars Electronica Nightline will follow the concert night at Posthof from 11pm, continuing until dawn with FARCE, Living Matter, Yao Bobby and Simon Grab, alongside Owelle, Nadia Struiwigh and ZOBAYDA. The Nightline is also being held at Posthof for the first time, but is listed as a distinct late-night programme from the Big Concert Night. The main event is scheduled for 11 September 2026 at Posthof, Linz.
