The Academy

The Lucerne Festival Academy is a school for new music and a laboratory for the future. Every summer, some 100 talented young musicians from all over the world are given the opportunity to concentrate on a repertoire that is still too much overlooked in the classical music business: the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The heart of the Lucerne Festival Academy is the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO). This is where all of the participants in a given year unite to spend three weeks rehearsing central works of the 20th and 21st centuries – from modern classics to many world premieres. They meet with renowned conductors, soloists, and composers. In recent years, these have included such figures as Sir George Benjamin, Peter Eötvös, Isabelle Faust, Alan Gilbert, Heinz Holliger, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Sir Simon Rattle.

As established by the late Wolfgang Rihm, every summer since 2016 the Lucerne Festival Academy has been offering a two-week-long Composer Seminar. Starting in 2025, it will be led by Dieter Ammann, who will conduct the seminar together with Unsuk Chin. During the first week, the participants discuss their works in plenary sessions open to the public as well as in one-on-one meetings. They then proceed to rehearse and prepare their scores with the accomplished musicians of the IEMA (Internationale Ensemble Modern Akademie) and the young conductors of the Contemporary-Conducting Program, before finally presenting them to the Festival audience.

The Contemporary-Conducting Program is aimed at young, aspiring professional conductors and should serve as a platform for a future conducting career. We believe in the importance of contemporary music for the development of young conductors and are looking for curious, talented, and interesting conductors with a strong interest in the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

During the Summer Festival 100 young musicians from all over the world attend the Lucerne Festival Academy. In order to make this unique experience for young people as personal and culturally relevant as possible, we are looking for host families and hosts who can accommodate musicians.