Classical Summer Festivals 2024

This festival in Glyndebourne is one of the best-known classical music summer festivals and includes an elegant picnic in the park. You can also watch some productions at home via Streaming.

There is hardly a more exciting place to listen to Italian opera! The approximately 2000-year-old amphitheatre in the city of Verona offers great acoustics and has regularly hosted opera festivals since Verdi's Aida was performed there on the occasion of its 100th birthday in 1913. The 101st festival in the Arena di Verona will feature the greatest Italian operas by Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and Bizet!

Whether at a picnic in the countryside, on small stages in secluded manor houses or in a classical concert hall, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival offers a colourful selection of concerts with artists such as the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (conducted by Alan Gilbert), Ulrich Tukur & Die Rhythmus Boys, Kool & The Gang, Asya Fateyeva, Jan Lisiecki, Salut Salon, Rolando Villazón, Ardemus Quartet, Lang Lang, Jamie Cullum, The King's Singers, Minguet Quartet, Take 6, Fatoumata Diawara & Band, Xavier de Maistre, Jazzrausch Bigband, Grigory Sokolov, Sabine Meyer, Daniel Hope and many more.

On two days you have the opportunity to experience Monteverdi's "Vespers for the Blessed Virgin" with the choir and orchestra "La Tempête" under the direction of Simon-Pierre Bestion.

In addition to the Symphony No. 25 in G minor KV 183 and Frescobaldi's and Maderna's "Tre Pezzi per Orchestera", the festival will conclude with Mozart's magnificent Requiem. The Schleswig-Holstein Festival Choir and the NDR Radiophilharmonie will sing and play under the direction of Stanislav Kochanovsky with soloists Elsa Benoit, Catriona Morison, Pietro Adaíni and Alexander Grassauer.

The Bregenz Festival has been thrilling audiences of up to 7,000 people per performance since 1946, and from 1950 on, with its impressive floating stage. In case of bad weather, the festival can be held in the adjacent Festspielhaus. This year, the opera Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber will be performed on the atmospheric lakeside stage.

Founded in 1994, this very young festival in Verbier , Switzerland, is dedicated to promoting young talent: Based on the concept of a workshop, internationally renowned artists meet up-and-coming musical talents.

Sir Simon Rattle conducts the VFCO in a memorable Beethoven Triple Concerto with three of his colleagues, Klaus Mäkelä, Lahav Shani and Leonidas Kavakos as soloists for cello, piano and violin. The Triple Concerto is followed by the Symphony No. 3 'Eroica'.

Cellist Mischa Maisky, his pianist daughter Lily Maisky and his violinist son Sascha Maisky present three chamber music works by the most famous relationship triangle in music history, Clara and Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

This year's Salzburg Festival takes place from 19 July to 31 August. Here you can find Links to all broadcasts. Some of the musical highlights and sheet music can be found here.

Under the baton of Herbert Blomstedt, Johannes Brahms Schicksalslied op. 54 and Mendelssohn's Lobgesang op. 52 await you in the large Festspielhaus with soloists Christina Landshamer, Elsa Benoit and Tilman Lichdi, the Vienna Singverein and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Under the baton of Václavs Luks, Zelenka's Statio Quadruplex pro Processione Theophonica ZWV 158 and Mozart's Great Mass in C minor KV 427 will be performed in the Collegiate Church of St Peter. The soloists Katharina Konradi, Ana Maria Labin, Krystian Adam and Krešimir Stražanac will be accompanied by the Collegium, Vocale 1704 and Collegium 1704.

On 10 and 11 August, Andris Nelsons and the Vienna Philharmonic will perform Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony in the large Festspielhaus.

A festival theatre designed by the composer himself, enthroned on a green hill with incomparable acoustics, plus the best Wagner singers of today and the Bayreuth Festival Choir live? You can only experience that here. The Bayreuth Festival is, of course, all about Richard Wagner's operas.

A new production of Tristan und Isolde by Icelandic director Thorleifur Örn Arnarsson is on the programme at the Green Hill this year. See Andreas Schager and Camilla Nylund in the title roles under the musical direction of Semyon Bychkov. On the traditional opening night, you can watch the performance on Livestream of BR Klassik.

The Lucerne Festival has been taking place since 1938, and was known as the Lucerne International Music Festival until 2000, and features top artists from all over the world.

The young Japanese pianist Mao Fujita made his debut at the Lucerne Festival in 2022 with Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, and will return this year with a solo programme.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra will delight audiences with Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major and, with pianist Beatrice Rana, Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto No. 1 in A minor.