Symphony

World class, day in and out: Lucerne Festival hosts the finest international symphony orchestras. They join with acclaimed classical music stars and perform the great symphonic repertoire. At no other festival in the world do so many top international orchestras perform within such a short span of time.

  • In summer 2023 the following will appear:

    Bavarian State Orchestra
    Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko
    Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelson
    Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Herbert Blomstedt
    Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Lahav Shani
    Lucerne Festival Orchestra with Riccardo Chailly
    Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
    Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and Michael Sanderling
    Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Harding
    Munich Philharmonic and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
    Oslo Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä
    Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Iván Fischer
    Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann
    Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra and Keri-Lynn Wilson
    West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim
    Vienna Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša

Contemporary

The "Contemporary" category promotes the music of our time and offers exciting musical adventures. For we love new sounds and are setting standards for the interpretation of contemporary music with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) and the Lucerne Festival Academy.

 © Priska Ketterer

Lucerne Festival Academy

Master school and laboratory for the future rolled into one: The Lucerne Festival Academy provides highly talented young musicians from all corners of the globe with the tools they need to interpret the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra

Lucerne Festival is passionately dedicated to the music of our time and sets interpretive standards with the new Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO).

Lucerne Festival Forward

The fall festival for the music of our own time, developed and presented by the excellent musicians of the Academy network.

composer-in-residence

Every year, one or two composers-in-residence make their mark on the Summer Festival and introduce themselves through a showcase of their work. In recent years, these have included Michel van der Aa, Unsuk Chin, Chaya Czernowin, Fritz Hauser, Thomas Kessler, Tod Machover, Olga Neuwirth, Rebecca Saunders, Johannes Maria Staud, and Jürg Wyttenbach. In 2022, the  British artist Thomas Adès will present, among others, a new composition for the star violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter

World premieres 2022

New works by Thomas Adès, Olivia Bennett, Tyson Davis, Joy Guidry, Pengyi Li, Jinan Zhenyan Li, Liza Lim, Minzuo Lu, Aregnaz Martirosyan, Lila Wildy Quillin, Hugo Van Rechem, Julian Riem, Wolfgang Rihm, Bettina Skrzypczak, Tyshawn Sorey, Héloïse Werner, and Raimonda Žiūkaitė 

Music for Future

Music for Future is committed to the generation of tomorrow on the stage.

The Debut concert series concert series gives up-and-coming stars of the industry a platform to present their virtuoso skills and interpretive artistry to an international audience. Seven to eight lunchtime concerts are held each summer as part of this series. Music for Future will additionally give attention to the pre-professional level: starting in 2021, the Summer Festivals will feature performances by international youth orchestras that show how young and fresh classical music can sound.

As part of Music for Future, Lucerne Festival awards three important sponsorship prizes:

Credit Suisse Young Artist Award

The renowned "Credit Suisse Young Artist Award" supports outstanding soloists who are on the threshold of an international career.

Prix Credit Suisse Jeunes Solistes

The Prix Credit Suisse Jeunes Soloists honors emerging musical talents from Switzerland.

Daniela Braun | Luis Homedes López | Anastasiia Subrakova © Calm Vidal Photography | © Io Baur | ©  Natalia Markova

Fritz Gerber Award

Established in 2015 by the Fritz Gerber Foundation and Lucerne Festival, the Fritz Gerber Award annually supports three young musicians in the field of contemporary classical music.

Music For Future is also committed to the audience of tomorrow.

Music for Future seeks to have a double strategic impact, insofar as this commitment also applies to the audience of tomorrow, to children and young people who are given ways to make a connection with classical and contemporary music. The goal is to awaken a sense of pleasure and joy in attending concerts and to make these encounters possible.

This is accomplished through family and children's concerts, which are tailored to different age groups and offer an introduction to the world of “classical music.” The family and children’s concerts last about 45 to 60 minutes and feature topics that are delivered in entertaining, funny, or exciting ways.

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