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Cathrin Kahlweit
The successor for the director of the Salzburg Festival, Helga Rabl-Stadler, has been determined. The new one is called Kristine Hammer and currently lives in Switzerland. Surprisingly, the board of trustees, in which high-ranking ÖVP state politicians sit, did not choose the favored Austrian state parliament president Brigitta Pallauf, but an internationally experienced lawyer and marketing specialist. From January 2022 onwards, the board of directors of the festival will consist of Hammer, the artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser and the commercial director Lukas Crepaz. Married the native German, who is married to an Austrian, started her own consulting company in 2010 “Hammer Solutions” she has worked for the Gerngross and Steffl department stores and for Mercedes-Benz, among others. Hammer said she was “proud and grateful”. She has been closely associated with the festival since childhood. Governor Wilfried Haslauer called Hammer “socially competent” and “interested in finding solutions”; it will protect the “premium brand Salzburg Festival”.