The Carinthian Summer was founded in 1969 as a music festival in Ossiach Abbey on Lake Ossiach. Combining summer with classical music thrilled artists and audiences from the very beginning. In just a few years, the Carinthian Summer in Ossiach and Villach established itself as an internationally renowned festival for classical music, which is associated with names such as Mstislaw Rostropowitsch, Leonard Bernstein, Christa Ludwig, Rudolf Buchbinder and Gottfried von Einem. A highlight of these early years was the first European Leonard Bernstein Festival at the Carinthian Summer in 1977, with the premiere of the revised version of his 3rd Symphony Kaddish in the Kongresshaus Villach (today the Congress Center Villach) under the direction of the composer.

Premieres and contemporary music have had a high priority at the Carinthian Summer from the beginning and still do. Numerous compositions by Gottfried von Einem, Ivan Eröd, Kurt Schwertsik, Bruno Strobl, Manuela Kerer, Tamara Friebel, Herbert Lauermann, Johannes Kalitzke and many others were created for the Carinthian Summer and were premiered here. Thomas Daniel Schlee, a composer, was the festival’s director from 2004 to 2015, the composer and radio manager Nikolaus Fheodoroff was the association’s long-time president. Schlee, like his successor Holger Bleck (2016 – 2023), continued a tradition that his predecessors Helmuth Wobisch (1969 – 1979) and Gerda Fröhlich (1980-2003) had shaped for Ossiach: the church opera. Since the Austrian premiere of Benjamin Britten’s The Prodigal Son (1975), a number of premieres of sacred music theater works by contemporary composers have followed with composition commissions throughout the Carinthian Summer, most recently the film opera Joan of Arc by Johannes Kalitzke (2020/2021) in the Congress Center Villach, the Klagenfurt Symphony Orchestra under the direction of the composer.

Starting from the festival centers of Ossiach and Villach, further venues have been added since 2003, such as the idyllic mountain church Tiffen, the dreamy Damtschach Castle or the Steinhaus Domenig, which, with its architectural quality as a large stone sculpture, offers a fascinating space, especially for new music. In the 2024 season, the island in Lake Faak will be the venue for the Carinthian Summer for the first time.

Nadja Kayali has been the intendant of the Carinthian Summer since October 2023. Her  first festival season, under the motto Carinthian Summer Personal , took place between July 6th and August 4th, 2024. She expanded the program to include numerous new formats, such as the morning concerts with premieres of texts by contemporary authors, readings and conversations. For the first time, the condensed festival brought events on every day of the season with record attendants.

The 2024 season was the start of many new collaborations with other festivals and cultural workers in Carinthia – the shared enthusiasm for the cultural region of Carinthia opens up new perspectives for cooperations.