Roche Commissions & Roche Young Commissions

Roche awards alternating commissions for compositions as part of the programs known as “Roche Commissions” and “Roche Young Commissions.” These new works then receive their world premieres at the Summer Festival.

“Roche Commissions” is a unique and trailblazing partnership between Roche, Lucerne Festival, and the Lucerne Festival Academy. In connection with this partnership, Roche has been awarding commissions to outstanding contemporary composers on a regular basis since 2003. Since the beginning of the “Roche Commissions” program, a total of nine composers have each received a commission to write a new work. The resulting scores have each been given their world premieres during the Summer Festival in Lucerne. 

As part of the “Roche Commissions” series, the 12th edition of “Roche Commissions” will go to the Swiss-born Austrian composer Beat Furrer. The world premiere of his work will take place as part of the 2024 Summer Festival and Beat Furrer will also conduct the new work.

In an expanded partnership of Roche with Lucerne Festival and the Lucerne Festival Academy, in 2013 the “Roche Young Commissions” program was created. Every two years this program gives out commissions for new works to two emerging composers. Within a two-year period the pair of composers then creates their orchestral works in a process of intensive exchange with two young conductors and under the guidance of Wolfgang Rihm, the Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy. These new scores are similarly introduced to the public at the Summer Festival in Lucerne. The inaugural world premiere of the “Roche Young Commissions” series took place in the summer of 2015.

Composition Commissions for the 2025 “Roche Young Commissions” awarded to the spanish composer Guillem Palomar and the german Jakob Raab.