OSKAR HAAG

Oskar Haag was born in Klagenfurt in 2005 into a family of artists (his father - a well-known musician, his mother a costume designer) that probably shaped him. He has recently moved to Vienna. School has been "put on hold", as he puts it.

Since his earliest childhood, he has gained stage experience as a dancer and, among other things, became Austrian champion in his class in the hip-hop team competition. At the same time, at the age of about eleven, he had his first small engagements as an actor at the local municipal theatre. Larger roles were to follow, such as in Peter Handke's"Immer noch Sturm" or most recently in the highly explosive play"Nicht sehen".

Besides acting, however, his main area ofactivity is music. He taught himself first the guitar and then the piano on thecheapest equipment. In the first lockdown, in the spring of 2020, he began writing his first songs. About a year later, DJ legend Fritz Oster mayer played one of Oskar's songs on the radio for the first time. Not without consequences, because shortly afterwards, in July 2021, he celebrated his acclaimed stage debut in front of 500 people at the end of the Vienna Pop fest in the Karlskirche. The local press was euphoric, as it seldom is, and described the then still 15-year-old as the country's greatest pop talent (orf.at).

What followed was what had to follow: half of Central Europe’s music world was suddenly after him. But Haag founded his own record company, Lullaby Records. On this label he released his first three singles, „Stargazing“, "Black Dress“ and „The Summer We Need“. Songs that only increased the hype around him and meanwhile, almost logically, can also point to plenty of airplay in Germany, the UK, and the USA. In addition, all debut songs went to number one in the charts of the cult radio station FM4, something that absolutely no one had ever achieved before him!

The first sold-out solo shows, several festival appearances, various support shows (Tocotronic, Thees Ullmann …), also including an acclaimed tour in the pre-show programme of the kindred spiritsAVEC, were to follow and his fan base grew steadily. In the meantime, Austrian music greats such as Maurice Ernst from Bilderbuch, Mavi Phoenix, and Nino aus Wien have declared themselves fans of Haag.

Right now, he is about to release "Lady Sunand Mr. Moon", the fourth single from his upcoming first album"Teenage Lullabies" (03.03.2023).

Parallel to his steep musical "rise",the Austrian cinema also engaged him on the spot. He made his debut in the film "Wald" (Forest) alongside Johannes Krisch and recently he played the youthful artist icon Arnulf Rainer in his first major role. His direct partner was none other than Burg theater darling Birgit Minichmayr as Maria Lassnig.

And his theatre career could hardly be better. He is currently working as a musician and actor at Vienna's Burgtheater, probably the most important theatre in Europe. The director Tina Lanik was so enthusiastic about Haag that she created a stage character for him for the Shakespeare production "As It May Be".