Dresden Festival Orchestra

Founded in 2012, the Dresden Festival Orchestra combines passionate performance with informed interpretation. As the Dresden Music Festival’s ensemble for historically informed performance, it is dedicated to re­covering the original sound world of the works it performs, using period instruments from the relevant eras. Its core repertoire is rooted in the Romantic period. The orchestra’s members come from renowned early music ensembles such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Concentus Musicus Wien, and Il Giardino Armonico. Ivor Bolton has been Principal Conductor from the beginning; guest con­ductors have included Hans-Christoph Rademann, Johannes Klumpp, Josep Caballé Domenech, Constantinos Carydis, David Robertson, and Jean-Christophe Spinosi. Highlights of the orchestra’s work have in­cluded the performance of the complete Schumann symphonies under Daniele Gatti in 2021 and the 2015 production of Richard Strauss’s early opera Feuersnot, which was nominated for the International Opera Award. In 2023, the orchestra joined Concerto Köln under Kent Nagano to take on Wagner’s tetra­logy Der Ring des Nibelungen, performed in historically informed style and incorporating the latest findings in Wagner scholarship. Following Das Rheingold (2023), Die Walküre (2024), and Siegfried (2025), the entire Ring cycle concludes this year with Götterdämmerung. The related tour takes the orchestra from Dresden to Paris, with stops in Bayreuth, Hamburg, Cologne, and Lucerne.

Lucerne Festival debut on 22 August 2023 in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, conducted by Kent Nagano, who led the orchestra Die Walküre and Siegfried over the suc­ceeding two summers as well.

July 2026