Ensemble of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI

Since its founding in 2003, more than 1,200 instrumentalists, conductors, and composers from over 60 countries have passed through the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY’s training program. Among them are such renowned artists as the JACK and Mivos Quartets and the conductors Pablo Heras-Casado and Kevin John Edusei, as well as many musicians who are now members of internationally established orchestras, who perform in the field of chamber music and pursue experimental projects, or who teach at universities. A large number of them remain closely associated with the Festival as LUCERNE FESTIVAL ALUMNI. These are selected former participants in the Academy who return regularly to Lucerne, enriching the program with performances in the realm of contemporary music, in the “40min” series, and in productions for “Young,” the Festival’s program for young listeners; they additionally provide advice and support to current Academy students. Supported by the Alumni platform, they also keep in contact with each other in order to jointly realize projects of their own around the world. This has created a unique international network of young musicians. As their first project, the Alumni presented four world premieres in the 2013-14 season exploring the theme “Music at Risk” in New York, London, Beijing, Zurich, and Lucerne. Among highlights of the past years have been the three-part concert series “Ligeti Forward,” which they performed as part of the NY Phil Biennial in 2016 under the baton of Alan Gilbert. In 2017 they toured Germany and Switzerland with the Swiss jazz singer Andreas Schaerer and his band Hildegard Lernt Fliegen (The Big Wig). They joined with the Ensemble intercontemporain in March 2018 to perform Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles in Paris, Brussels, and Luxembourg as well as at the Lucerne Easter Festival. In September 2019, they performed with Riccardo Chailly at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.

First appearance at LUCERNE FESTIVAL was on 3 September 2014 in the project Music at Risk.

August 2020