24 December 2025
IT’S CHRISTMAS
MARLENE PENNINGER
FLORIAN REIDER
SMILING GECKO BAND
6:00 PM @ The Farmhouse Resort & The Gong
Join us for our traditional Christmas party at the Smiling Gecko Campus. Enjoy an evening full of song and joy, delicious food by the Farmhouse Resort’s Pool and spectacular live performances at the GONG. Rumour has it that even Father Christmas has announced his arrival.
MARLENE PENNINGER
Marlene Penninger, born in 1998, is an austrian violinist and composer. She was classically trained at the University for Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the Conservatoire royale de Bruxelles (Erasmus) but now embraces multiple genres and styles as she merges them into her own musical language. As a key part of the string ensemble inn.wien she has been experimenting with different concert formats. Their staged concert «What on Earth!» won the 2025 YAM Award for large ensemble and will be continued in concert in 2026. Furthermore inn.wien regularily collaborates with the jazztrio Drehwerk with whom they released their first EP «Lost Inside» (2024). A very special and dear-to-heart project is the string quartet Zwischenwelten («between worlds»). Their combined goal is to find a unique voice und space for their own compositions. Artistic highlights in recent years include a scholarship for the Mozartfest Würzburg 2024 where she was working with Florian Willeitner and her Musikverein Wien debut with Matteo Haitzmann‘s as part of the Vienna Pride 2024.
FLORIAN REIDER
Florian Reider is active in many genres, including classical, jazz, and contemporary music. He is primarily a chamber musician and jazz musician and has performed in these roles at national and international festivals and competitions. Reider was a finalist in the Freiburg Jazz Piano Competition and the Langnau Jazz Nights International Piano Competition, won the Joe Zawinul Prize in 2022, and was nominated for the Jazz Newcomer Prize of the City of Innsbruck. Reider teaches piano, jazz piano, and accompaniment at the Wörgl Regional Music School and, together with Christian Spitzenstaetter, directs the Fleckl Festival in Kufstein and Bern. To date, he has collaborated with artists such as Franz Hackl, Miho Hazama, Florian Eggner, Selina Ott, Gene Pritsker, Michaela Reingruber, Isabel Karajan, Thomas Lichtenecker, and Alvaro Collao Leon.
SMILING GECKO BAND
The Smiling Gecko Band is part of the Smiling Gecko Singers programme. A group of young and passionate performers selected from Smiling Gecko’s students in rural Cambodia. The programme aims to nurture local creative potential and help young artists to explore opportunities in the music industry, empowering them to use their talent as a tool for self-expression and future careers. Under the guidance of the Gong Studio each programme member has shown exceptional talent in singing, playing musical instruments, and performing. Including a collaboration with singer Kesorrr and a live performance at the National Olympic Stadium in Phnom Penh. The Smiling Gecko Band reflects The Gong’s mission to bridge creativity, education, and real-world artistic experience.