2025 Program

This orchestra always goes all out. Whether playing softly or at full volume, etching a melody or building to a climax, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra teases out contrasts while eliciting the finest details from the score.

As part of their Spring Festival residency at the beginning of April, the musicians will take another fresh look at Ludwig van Beethoven: under the direction of Music Director Riccardo Chailly, they will perform two of Beethoven’s most popular symphonies, the Sixth and Ninth. They will also be joined by audience favorite Mao Fujita as the soloist in the poetic Fourth Piano Concerto.

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra will give its first-ever performance at the Piano Fest at the end of May with an all-Mozart program featuring Igor Levit.

The orchestra will then take the stage at the Summer Festival to give no fewer than five full symphonic programs. For these, Music Director Riccardo Chailly will focus on Mahler and Rachmaninoff, while Yannick Nezet-Seguin will continue his acclaimed exploration of Bruckner. Andres Orozco-Estrada will present Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in all its glory, and Sir Simon Rattle will make his debut conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra with Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The soloists include Seong-Jin Cho, Isabelle Faust, Elīna Garanča, Clay Hilley, Magdalena Kožená, Beatrice Rana, and Tabea Zimmermann. It doesn’t get any better than that!