Forward Festival 2025
Returning for its fifth edition, Lucerne Festival Forward – the Festival’s fall celebration of contemporary music – will take place from 21 to 23 November 2025. The adventurous young musicians of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) will present a wide panorama of music that’s entirely of our time. The offerings range from an orchestral concert featuring star violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and rising cello sensation Anastasia Kobekina to improvisations with performer Charlotte Hug and saxophonist Tapiwa Svosve, as well as a family concert created in collaboration with local schoolchildren. With their sound installation Drinnen Draussen (“Inside Outside”), Daniel Ott and Enrico Stolzenburg will be joined by more than 300 participants to transform the entire KKL Lucerne – and even parts of the city – into a fascinating sonic landscape. For this one-of-a-kind Forward finale, we’re still looking for fencers, table tennis players, and tap dancers to join in – come be part of it!
Every year in November, Lucerne Festival Forward offers contemporary music a platform and gives a voice to the musicians of the younger generation. It all starts out from the idea of using the international network of the Lucerne Festival Academy, which has grown over the years and now comprises more than 1,200 artists, as a collective mastermind. And this is the case in several respects. The concerts are not only prepared and presented by the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO), our orchestra of excellence for the performance of new and contemporary music. Selected Contemporary Leaders from the Academy network also participate to develop the program as curators. In doing so, they take new approaches to closing the gap between so-called “new music” and the audience: they seek out contact with listeners, experiment with unusual concert formats, focus on lesser-known voices and aesthetic positions with respect to the creation of contemporary music, and purposefully mix nationalities, generations, and genders.
Responsible for Lucerne Festival Forward: Felix Heri und Mark Sattler
New musical experiences need strong partners with vision. We sincerely thank our Founding Partner for their indispensable commitment!
