Classical Music’s summit meeting: Lucerne Festival starts in one month!
The Summer Festival, which takes place from 13 August through 15 September 2024, will offer 131 events featuring 24 symphony and chamber orchestras as well as numerous ensembles and choruses from all over the world and a wide range of international stars and emerging artists.
Federal Councillor Beat Jans and prominent representatives from the spheres of culture, business, and politics will be present for the Opening Concert on 16 August featuring the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly.
Lucerne, 16 July 2024. Whether you have a picnic blanket to relax on the Inseli Park grounds right next to the KKL Luzern or are clad in formal evening dress in the Concert Hall, Lucerne Festival welcomes concertgoers to the Opening Concert for the 2024 season on 16 August. The Lucerne Festival Orchestra and its Music Director Riccardo Chailly will launch Switzerland’s largest classical music festival with a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Seventh Symphony. To underscore this summer’s theme of “Curiosity,” an ensemble from the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) under the direction of Johanna Malangré will perform Lisa Streich’s new work Reigen. Along with Federal Councillor Beat Jans, numerous guests from the spheres of culture, business, and politics are expected to be in attendance at the KKL. The concert can be viewed on a large screen under the stars in Inseli Park, and musicians from the LFCO will welcome the Lucerne audience with a fanfare to mark the 20th anniversary of the Lucerne Festival Academy. The renowned visual artist Zilla Leutenegger will also explore the theme of “Curiosity” and present the project “Auf Besuch bei mir selbst” (“A Visit with Myself”) in the KKL foyer. Invited guests can experience her installation at the opening event before the concert as well as during intermission. The art project will also be open to the general public following the concert.
The Summer Festival kicks off on Tuesday, 13 August, with Oksana Lyniv and the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine; on 14 August, Gianandrea Noseda will conduct the European Union Youth Orchestra. The Opening Concert will then take place on 16 August and will also be broadcast live on SRF 1 television and SRF 2 Kultur radio.
The Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris-Philharmonie, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and many other top international orchestras will perform at Lucerne Festival this summer. Along with the two “artistes étoiles” — violinist Lisa Batiashvili and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason — additional stars such as Rudolf Buchbinder, Renaud Capuçon, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniil Trifonov, and Anna Vinnitskaya will perform in Lucerne. Conductors include Riccardo Chailly, Alan Gilbert, Susanna Mälkki, Andris Nelsons, Kirill Petrenko, Lahav Shani, and Christian Thielemann. This year’s Lucerne Festival Academy, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, consists of about 126 young instrumentalists, conductors, and composers from 17 countries who will come to Lucerne for three weeks for an extensive program of rehearsals and concerts. A total of 20 works will be premiered during the Summer Festival. Such sought-after emerging artists as Swiss harpist Tjasha Gafner and pianist Martin James Bartlett will make their solo debuts. Five Family Concerts will also be offered. There are 22 events designed exclusively for school classes, including six concerts at the KKL Lucerne, one of which features the Berliner Philharmoniker Brass Ensemble in the Concert Hall.
Numerous Lucerne Festival events will also take place in public spaces this summer, including the world music festival “In the Streets” from 27 August to 1 September and the 40min Open Air event on 24 August. To supplement the concerts, audiences can look forward to introductions to the programs, pre-concerts with Academy members, post-concert talks with the Festival dramaturges Susanne Stähr and Mark Sattler, and live panel discussions with critics hosted by Radio SRF 2 Kultur in the KKL foyer.
Lucerne Festival on TV und Radio
The Opening Concert on 16 August will be broadcast on TV by SRF 1 with a time delay starting at 10.25 pm (Swiss time) and will be recorded by Accentus Music in cooperation with SRF and Arte Concert. It will be streamed live on Arte Concert and will be available as video-on-demand for three months. The concert by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly on 20 August will be streamed live on Arte Concert and will be available as video-on-demand for three months and additionally broadcast by SRF 1 on 25 August at 2.05 pm (Swiss time) and by Arte TV on 29 September. The recording is a co-production of Accentus Music with Arte and SRF. In China, the concert will be available as video-on-demand on NCPA for 12 months.
Radio SRF 2 Kultur will record a total of 11 Lucerne Festival concerts and broadcast three evenings live: in addition to the Opening Concert, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra concert conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin with pianist Beatrice Rana as the soloist and the LFCO concert conducted by Beat Furrer with trumpeter Simon Höfele will be broadcast. A list of all broadcast dates for the concerts that can be seen or heard live or at a later date on radio or television can be found on the website.
A press kit with texts on all topics related to the Summer Festival as well as photos can be found at lucernefestival.ch/en/press.