Discover the Lucerne Festival Forward

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:
Felix Heri und Mark Sattler

Lucerne Festival Contemporary Leaders:
Chloë Abbott | Jack Adler-McKean | Cecila Bercovich | Ettore Biagi | Winnie Huang | Helga Karen | Edward Kass | Marina Kifferstein | Angus Lee | Alex Lipowski | Stephen Menotti | Benjamin Mitchell | Ben Roidl-Ward | Michelle Ross | James Austin Smith | Nathan Watts | Johnna Wu | Andrew Zhou

New musical experiences need strong partners with vision. We sincerely thank our Founding Partner for their indispensable commitment!