Lucerne Festival has announced the creation of a new spring event, Pulse, which will be curated by Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson for the next three seasons. The inaugural edition, built around the theme “Time and Space,” will take place from 8 to 17 May 2026 and will feature collaborations that link Johann Sebastian Bach’s music with contemporary artistic perspectives.
Pulse will open in Meggen with a project combining Bach’s Goldberg Variations and a new light installation by Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. Presented in St. Pius Church from 8 to 10 May, the performance merges live music and real-time visual design in what the Festival describes as a synesthetic experience. With its translucent marble walls, the venue offers what Ólafsson calls “an intimate space” suited to this kind of interdisciplinary encounter.
The festival will then move to KKL Luzern for four days of concerts from 14 to 17 May. Ólafsson will perform both as a soloist and in collaboration with international artists and ensembles including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the MDR Radio Choir, the Danish String Quartet, Thomas Adès, Elim Chan, and Patricia Kopatchinskaja.
Programming highlights include an evening conducted by Thomas Adès, featuring works by Ligeti, Kurtág, Adès, and Pärt; a chamber programme by the Danish String Quartet combining Beethoven, Bach/Stravinsky arrangements, and Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet; and a late-night performance of Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet with Ólafsson. His solo recital on 16 May, titled Opus 109, will juxtapose Bach and Schubert with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 109. The festival will close on 17 May with Bach’s Piano Concerto in F minor, led by Elim Chan, alongside Berg’s Violin Concerto with Kopatchinskaja and Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, ending with a communal performance of the Bach chorale Es ist genug.
Lucerne Festival’s Executive and Artistic Director Sebastian Nordmann describes Pulse as “a festival that follows the rhythm of thought and feeling,” conceived as more than a traditional piano series. Ólafsson, who will curate Pulse through 2028, emphasises that the theme of time and space allows the programme to travel “through centuries and across countries,” with Bach as a recurrent point of reference.
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