Bild: © Fabi Rettenbacher

Beaks is the music project by Anna Francesca, who has been writing for years but only recently found a way of sharing her text through songs. Coming from poetry, she plays words like an instrument, embedded into a sound that’s minimalistic and effortless. 

Her lyrics are introspective snapshots of life – perhaps even dream sequences – reflecting the essence of the human condition. Oscillating between reality and a dizzy daydream, Beaks is sleepwalking with open eyes. This becomes evident in her single „Dirty Girls,“ that ends with the words: „How do dreams work? Will I wake up if I die?“

Bild: © Lena Baloch

The in-house Grrrls Choir of the Grrrls Cultural Association ends the rehearsal year and gives its final concert before the summer break at STERRRN - as is tradition!

Bild: © Björn B.

Deta plays exclusively on vinyl and is open to all genres. For the Sterrrn pre-party, she brings a varied mix of disco, house and electro, focussing on rhythmic structures and percussion - danceable and rich in detail.

Bild: © Diana Mühlberger

Vienna-born Dexpleen (they/them), at 22, channels a lifetime of emotion into music. The producer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist has been tinkering with the ivories since the age of six and refuses to be confined by genre labels.

Born out of an overwhelming sense of being misunderstood, their music serves as a vessel for emotions often too complex for words. It defies categorization, effortlessly weaving elements of indiepop, folk rock, and electro pop into a tapestry of sonic storytelling.

With a keen desire to fill the void of representation, Dexpleen crafts queer love songs – anthems of love and longing that resonate with authenticity and unapologetic pride – offering a safe haven within their music for all who seek refuge.

In these melodies, listeners find not only an escape but also a sense of validation – a confirmation that they are seen, heard, and understood. Dexpleen emerges as a beacon of authenticity and hope, inviting us into a world where individuality is celebrated and acceptance reigns supreme.

Bild: © Mona Werner

GLUT are a band from Vienna / Linz . Their songs are epics about escape, rebellion, in justice, and personal growth.

Two friends are living their dream and claiming the space they deserve. With catchy rocksongs, psychedelic influences, and plenty of noise on stage, they’ve already won over audiences during their more than 20 concerts in austria.

Together with their bassist, the rock trio is complete. Heavy drums, a powerful guitar, a strong voice , and energetic bass riffs set the stage ablaze . The band inspires courage and creates space for imperfection. Their sense of empowerment is as electrifying as a fire ready to ignite .

Bild: © Portia

PORTIA is a psychedelic rock band featuring sitar, guitar, bass, drums, and a range of effect pedals. Their roots lie in the jam culture of Vienna’s psych rock scene, from which this project has taken shape over the past three years. Since 2024, we have been playing on a variety of stages across Vienna, including Arena Wien, Otto Wagner Areal, Viper Room, and the Pop Chop Food Festival.

Their sound is versatile and ever-shifting. At its core is psychedelic rock — sometimes heavy, sometimes driving — woven together with playful, intricate melodies from guitar and sitar. PORTIA open the gates to a voyage where guitar and sitar blend into rhythmic drumming, and a bass that dives low and lands with a satisfying wallop. A dance of loops and layers spiraling into a smooth cosmic ocean. As the weight of the world melts away, each sound becomes a swirl in a vast sea of dreams, guiding you into otherworldly realms.

Bild: © Christian Steiner

Scheidenkleister is a music project founded in the shadow of Graz’s Schlossberg, which has been spewing out feminist black metal since 2017 and setting the ruins of patriarchy ablaze. Behind this radical, emancipatory collective stand Vulvarca (including Satan’s Violin, Screams) and Clitorax (including Death Organ) – two icons of their genre. With merciless organ blast beats, corpse paint and abysmal soundscapes, they smash misogynistic power structures to smithereens. Scheidenkleister believes not in salvation, but only in destruction as an act of liberation under the dominion of Satana. Bow down!

Bild: © smallsouki

Eleni Gaitani under the alias name Small Souki, is a musician, music-therapist and mathematician from Lamia, Greece, based in Vienna, Austria since 2015. She has worked basically in music and sound-art by collecting elements from variant genres like blues, jazz, alternative rock, psychedelic grunge rock, and progressive metal music as well as poetry and spoken-word to create familiar environments for her audiences to mutually exist and express their ideas and problematics, converging to a stable system. The projects and bands in which she participates, include the psychedelic grunge rock band, Small Souki & The Big Trouble Band, a 5-person collective that produces “heroine music for socio-political troubled subjects”, the band-project Manitari, an improvisational session with simulating effects, that on the grounds of a live performance includes the listener’s contributions with voice as main instrument as well as various materials for experimentation with sound-art. Furthermore, she has created sound-art pieces as a mix of digital music production and field recordings and led workshops in music therapy applying methods such as the Alexander technique and group improvisation with guidance to connect the individuals from different backgrounds (age, heritage, gender) of her unit.

Bild: © Mario Reinisch

A mix of genres ranging from exhilarating dance music to atmospheric romantic longing. A soundtrack that challenges you to be in the right place at the right time.

Bild: © Juliette Moarbes

SF26 EXPERT TALK

Sonja Eismann presents her book

CANDY GIRLS - SEXISMUS IN DER MUSIKINDUSTRIE
(Nautilus Flugschrift, 2025)

In a talk with Susanne Sackl-Sharif

Sonja Eismann (born 1973) is a journalist and cultural studies scholar. She studied comparative literature in Vienna, Mannheim, Dijon and Santa Cruz (USA) and was a co-founder of the magazine nylon and Missy Magazine, where she remains a member of the editorial team to this day. She has worked as an author and journalist for publications including Spex, taz, Freitag and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and conducts research into gender representations in pop music. From 2016 to 2022, she was a member of the Goethe-Institut’s Music Council, and in 2024 she held the Pop Studies Chair at the University of Paderborn. She lives in Berlin.

Susanne Sackl-Sharif lives and works as a musicologist and sociologist in Graz and Vienna. Her research focuses in particular on popular culture, political participation, digitalisation processes and social inequalities. She wrote her doctoral thesis on gender aspects in metal music. She is the singer and violinist in the feminist black metal band Scheidenkleister.

Bild: © Leonhard Schmidt

Vogue Femme Crash Kurs

Learn about a queer dance style in a playful manner – everyone welcome! Voguing originates in the Harlem Ballroom Community, an intersectional cultural space between POC and LGBTQIA+ identities. We'll explore the background of the dance, practice a few basic techniques and have lots of fun while getttint to know a new way of expressing ourselves. Get to know yourself from a new side and show off how cunty you truly can be. Confident, unapologetic feminitiy is what I want to see.

Kisme Moonlight 007

Kisme officially started his Ballroom journey in 2022. The next year, he already took part in international balls and started teaching his own Voguing class in Graz. His main categories are Vogue Femme, Arms Control, and Lip Sync. After spending half a year in Spain, he has returned to bring Ballroom back to Graz.

Bild: © Astrid Drechsler

This students project combines traditional instruments with contemporary electronic music and interaction. It was first developed for the Cultural Capital of Heritage 2024 in Austria. The sound characteristics of old instruments are paired with new styles of playing. It is an interactive installation where visitors can operate the Musikmaschine and create short electronic music compositions.

The Musikmaschine is a music robot that plays instruments using an intuitive user interface, similar to a drum machine. The machine was developed and built by students from FH JOANNEUM and the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz as part of the Master’s programme “Communication, Media, Sound and Interaction Design – Sound Design” – an inter-university collaboration between the Institute of Design and Communication at FH JOANNEUM and the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at KUG. This project as supervised by Astrid Drechsler und Daniel Fabry.

During the Sterrrn Festival there will also be a performance with the Machine by musician Mahtab Miandehi.