"Spiel für Vögel"

After the last notes of Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” faded away in the KKL Lucerne Concert Hall on 25 August 2024, the audience applauded – not yet realizing just what a surprise was awaiting them. The soloists of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra did not leave the stage as per convention. Instead, they started playing again and, as if heading a dance line, led the audience to exit the Concert Hall and relocate on the Europaplatz in front of the KKL Luzern.

Outside, on the Europaplatz, a lovingly designed backdrop awaited the guests: the trees had been decorated with origami birds folded by schoolchildren from the Lucerne region, and the sound of birdsong reverberated throughout the square. Against this backdrop, the musicians again lined up to play excerpts from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” — much to the delight of the concertgoers and passers-by.

Through the “Spiel für Vögel” (“Play for the birds”) campaign, Lucerne Festival and BirdLife Lucerne are building on last year’s sing-along event “Sing für Vögel” to again raise awareness of the endangered situation affecting the world of birds — nature’s singers. The campaign also collected donations for BirdLife Lucerne’s “Hedges for Red-backed Shrikes & Co.” project, as part of which employees during the 2023 edition of Lucerne Festival planted 400 meters of hedges in Pfeffikon in the Canton of Lucerne and also maintained them in 2024. Lucerne Festival once again donated CHF 15,000 to the project. This commitment is part of Lucerne Festival’s comprehensive sustainability strategy, of which the preservation and promotion of biodiversity are an integral part.