From 12 August to 14 September 2025, one of the world’s most prestigious classical music festivals returns with around 120 events under the theme Open End. This year’s edition is the last to be led by Michael Haefliger, who steps down after 26 years as Executive and Artistic Director. His tenure has been marked by the creation of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra with Claudio Abbado, the launch of the Lucerne Festival Academy with Pierre Boulez, and a sustained expansion of contemporary music programming.
The official Opening Concert on 15 August will see Riccardo Chailly and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 (in the Deryck Cooke performing version), Rückert-Lieder with Elīna Garanča, and Pierre Boulez’s Mémoriale, marking the composer’s centenary. The evening will also feature artiste étoile Winnie Huang.
Across 34 days, the festival will welcome leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic (Kirill Petrenko), Vienna Philharmonic (Franz Welser-Möst), and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Klaus Mäkelä). Other highlights include the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Vasily Petrenko, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with Daniel Barenboim, and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Daniel Harding.
Martha Argerich, originally scheduled to appear with Santa Cecilia and Harding on 28 August, has withdrawn due to acute exhaustion. Seong-Jin Cho will replace her, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Cho is also soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin on 26 August.
The second artiste étoile, Tabea Zimmermann, will appear with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra in Dieter Ammann’s Viola Concerto, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in Bartók’s Viola Concerto, and in chamber music programs.
Contemporary music is again a major strand. Composer-in-residence Marco Stroppa will be featured in a series of concerts, while “Kosmos Boulez” celebrates the Academy founder with works such as Répons and Poésie pour pouvoir. At the close of the festival, “Les Adieux” on 14 September will gather long-time artistic collaborators, including Sol Gabetta, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Igor Levit, and members of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, for a three-hour farewell celebration.
A prominent addition to this year’s festival is the European debut of Ark Nova, the mobile and inflatable concert hall designed by Sir Anish Kapoor and Arata Isozaki. Installed on the Lidowiese from 4 to 14 September, it will host 35 short-format concerts ranging from classical to jazz, folk, and pop, with performers including Igor Levit, Wayne Marshall, and Winnie Huang.
Lucerne Festival | Ark Nova | Sendai 2014 © Anish Kapoor, all rights reserved. Photo: Yu Terayama/Lucerne Festival
From 2026, the festival will be led by Sebastian Nordmann, currently Artistic Director of the Konzerthaus Berlin. One of his first major appointments will be Jörg Widmann as Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy. Widmann, who was composer-in-residence in Lucerne in 2009 and is widely acclaimed as a clarinetist, conductor, and composer, succeeds Wolfgang Rihm in the role. Speaking about the appointment, Widmann said: “It is more important than ever to embed contemporary music even more deeply into traditional concert programs and to build bridges between the masterpieces of the past and the music of today.”
The program is further enriched by the free “40min” series, the 20th anniversary edition of the In the Streets world music festival, numerous Debut and Family Concerts, and the environmental installation Quak: Sounds by the Water in collaboration with Pro Natura Lucerne.
For full details, see Lucerne Festival’s website.
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