The 2026 Summer Festival is the first under the leadership of Sebastian Nordmann as Lucerne Festival’s Executive and Artistic Director. Welcoming the world’s finest orchestras and top classical artists — and presenting music at the highest level — remains the core principle. Yet new ideas are part of the mix as well. Here is an overview.
Orchestrating the Moment
Magical concert moments happen when you forget that time is passing — when music, space, and people find each other and suddenly there’s that one instant that stays with you. We do everything we can to make these moments possible: in one of the world’s finest concert halls, with musical legends and exceptional young talents, with timeless classics and bold new sounds. All of this is set against the breathtaking backdrop of lake and mountains, the historic Old Town, and the KKL Luzern as a modern architectural icon. That is what we want to express with our new tagline: Orchestrating the Moment.
Welcome, Jörg Widmann!
The Lucerne Festival Academy has a new Artistic Director — and he’s a remarkably versatile artist! Jörg Widmann, who took over at the start of 2026 as successor of the late Wolfgang Rihm, is not only one of today’s most distinguished composers but also an internationally sought-after clarinetist and conductor. In his first season, he will appear both as a virtuoso soloist and conductor. And a key innovation is also being made at the Lucerne Festival Academy: the Composer Seminar, led by Dieter Ammann and Unsuk Chin, will now concentrate exclusively on orchestral works.
New Performance Formats
Lucerne Festival is much more than just the traditional evening symphony concert. At “Mittendrin,” you sit onstage among the musicians and experience up close how the music comes to life. “In the Streets: City Stage” takes the Festival across the whole city for six days, with scheduled performances and surprise pop-up concerts in all kinds of places, featuring the “Symphonic Jukebox” and a marching band. New this year is the festival kickoff that opens the Festival on 13 August, with free performances both outdoors and in the Concert Hall.
New Package: The Fan Zone
In a soccer stadium, there’s the fan section, where the most devoted supporters cheer on their team with chants and their own creative displays of choreography. And now the Lucerne Festival Orchestra has its own fan section as well: with our new package, you pick your four favorite concerts by our deluxe ensemble and experience them from the organ loft. That means you’re right up close to “your” musicians — and all for just CHF 200!
New Stars
The great names remain a constant: Martha Argerich, Cecilia Bartoli, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Sir Simon Rattle will all return in 2026. But you can also look forward to new, younger names and to artists appearing at Lucerne Festival for the first time. Among them are two celebrated Americans: mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and violinist Hilary Hahn. Making their debut here as well are the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and its charismatic Principal Conductor Joana Mallwitz. The Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, who leads the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, will also be performing in Lucerne for the first time. Three young keyboard stars await you: France’s Alexandre Kantorow, Korea’s Yunchan Lim, and Japan’s Hayato Sumino. Cellist Jan Vogler will join American poet Amanda Gorman to interweave music and poetry. And Augustin Hadelich and Seong-Jin Cho are also on the program: they will take the stage together as a duo for the very first time.
New Repertoire
Thanks to the “American Dreams” theme, 2026 brings a host of works appearing at Lucerne Festival for the first time, including Charles Ives’s First Symphony, Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto, and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. And the discoveries extend beyond America to Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Scriabin’s Third Symphony, Henze’s Sinfonia N. 9, and so on . . .
Not Just Classical
At Lucerne Festival, you can experience the very best of the classical world — but that’s not all. Increasingly, artists from entirely different styles and genres are enriching the program and contributing their unique perspectives. At the final Festival weekend, for example, the Hamburg band MEUTE will turn the KKL into a dance floor with their powerful brass-driven techno.
Enhanced Offer for Young Listeners
We’re bringing even more to our popular “Look, Listen, Enjoy” offer: attend a symphony concert or recital of your choice in the KKL Concert Hall and bring a child or young person along for just CHF 10.