About the Lucerne Festival

Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music. Lucerne Festival was founded in 1938; since 1999, Michael Haefliger has been its Executive and Artistic Director.

The Easter Festival at the Weinmarkt in Lucerne (from 1453 into the 16th century) is regarded as one of the outstanding contributions to the early history of German-language drama. In the 19th century the General Music Society of Switzerland (later: Swiss Union of Musicians) presents music festivals in Lucerne. From 1866 to 1872 Richard Wagner lives in nearby Tribschen, where he completes Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and composes parts of the Ring. A decade before, while in exile in Zurich, he envisaged a festival on the shores of Lake Lucerne – an idea that is also later taken up by his son Siegfried around 1930. Richard Strauss and Max Reinhardt similarly consider Lucerne as a potential festival city before they found the Salzburg Festival.

Even before music festival is founded, guest orchestras perform regularly in Lucerne under such leading conductors as Arthur Nikisch, Arturo Toscanini, and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Along with this tradition, Mayor Jakob Zimmerli – the leading force behind establishing a music festival, which will also give an impetus to the tourist industry – can also base this plan on a reliable infrastructure: the Kursaal in the Grand Casino Lucerne, the Saal of the Hotel Union, and the Kunst- und Kongresshaus, newly opened in 1933. Initial plans for a music festival are developed in 1936-37, inspired by the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet and in collaboration with Walter Schulthess, the director of the Zurich Concert Society AG. The Lucerne Kursaal Orchestra is foreseen as the ensemble, to be expanded with musicians from the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which Ansermet founded in 1918. Richard Strauss is asked to be the conductor but declines in 1938. In 1937 a “run-through” takes place in the Kursaal with the radio orchestras of Zurich and Lausanne led by Robert F. Denzler.

The central festival takes place in summer from mid-August to mid-September and offers a widely varied range of approximately 100 concerts and related events. Each Summer Festival features a guiding theme that runs dramaturgically through the programming. The Festival presents a diverse array of formats, including symphony concerts, chamber music, recitals, debuts, late night events, and much more. Flanking the Summer Festival are short festivals, one each in spring and fall: a spring residency featuring the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and “Lucerne Festival Forward,” which takes place in November. “Lucerne Festival Forward” is artistically and conceptually designed by musicians from the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO). In May 2023, a fourth festival will be added. This will be a three-day Piano Festival curated by the pianist Igor Levit. The KKL Luzern, designed by Jean Nouvel and equally renowned for its acoustics and architecture, is Lucerne Festival’s central venue.

Just in time to mark the 60th birthday of the IMF, Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic open the new concert hall on 19 August. The completion of the entire KKL complex takes until 2000. Other festivals visit as guest artists with their own productions, such as the Bayreuth Festival with parts of Götterdämmerung (under James Levine) and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (under Daniel Barenboim) and the Salzburg Festival with Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise (under Kent Nagano). The KKL opens up new possibilities: the Piano Festival is the third Festival to be founded. It is devoted entirely to keyboard music.

Lucerne Festival is one of the world’s leading classical music festivals. It is committed to the highest degree of artistic quality and aim to inspire the audiences at home and abroad, from young people to the elderly. It makes groundbreaking cross-connections between tradition and innovation and champion the emerging generation of musicians and the music of our time while at the same time safeguarding artistic and financial independence.

For more than 20 years, Lucerne Festival has been committed to sustainability: for the coming generation of artists, for tomorrow's audiences, for contemporary music, for diversity and social engagement in music, and recently for climate action as well.