The summer part of the Lucerne Festival, from 13 August to 13 September, floods the city with over 100 concerts. Major international orchestras, including the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, appear, along with soloists and ensembles.
This year’s festival, the first under the leadership of Executive and Artistic Director Sebastian Nordmann, carries the theme of American Dreams.
Sebastian Nordmann (photo by Priska Ketterer)
Among the season’s highlights are the 50th anniversary of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first appearance on a Lucerne stage, violinist Augustin Hadelich as ‘artiste étoile’, French composer Mark Andre as composer-in-residence, and Jörg Widmann as the new Artistic Director of the Lucerne Festival Academy.
Anne-Sophie Mutter (photo by Andreas Ortner)
Mark Andre
Jörg Widmann (photo by Marco Borggreve)
Taking the line from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Executive and Artistic Director Sebastian Nordmann quotes: ‘Summertime, and the livin’ is easy’ and plans to turn Lucerne into a musical dreamland. Music from composers from A–Z, including John Adams and George Antheil to Steve Reich and Frank Zappa, will be part of the programming, and performers, including members of the Met Orchestra and the poet Amanda Gorman (former National Youth Poet Laureate for the US), will take the stage.
Expanding the idea of a classical music concert as one that takes place only in a concert hall, this year’s festival expands outside the walls.
The opening Overture kicks off the Festival with two free concerts back-to-back. Following the big party opening concert on 13 August, held at the KKL Luzern concert hall, you head outdoors to the Europaplatz for the second part of the evening. Continuing the idea of Gershwin’s Cuban Overture and Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo from West Side Story, played by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the outdoor concert is a Cuban-Classical Night, performed by the Havana Lyceum Orchestra, conducted by José Antonio Méndez Padrón. Music by Bach, Mozart, and Bizet is given a Latin American twist, and Hornist Sarah Willis performs the Mozart Horn Concerto finale in Mozart’s style and then as Ronda alla Mambo by Joshua Davis and Yuniet Lombida.
The 6-day In the Streets: City Stage uses all of Lucerne as its concert hall from 25 to 30 August. Jazz from New Orleans in the hands of clarinettist Doreen Ketchens is matched with the Dixie-Ramblers, Switzerland’s own New Orleans–style band.
The Dixie-Ramblers.CH with Werni Braun, sousaphone; Miro Steiner, trombone, vocals; Ivan Kubias, trumpet, vocals; Heinz Glauser, banjo, guitar; and Danny Hausherr, reeds, piano, vocals
A yellow hot-air balloon is scheduled to land, to become both a pop-up installation and a miniature concert hall. The Musegg Wall will be part of a sound walk, and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra restyles itself as a ‘symphonic jukebox’. Take to the streets for music!
Mittendrin (photo by Marco Borggreve)
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to actually BE in an orchestra, the Mittendrin (In the Middle) program on 22 August spreads out the orchestra so the audience can sit beside the players. The Budapest Festival Orchestra, led by Iván Fischer, will perform Fischer’s own arrangement of Prokofiev’s music from the ballet Cinderella. Fischer debuted this immersive experience at the Konzerthaus Berlin and now brings it to Lucerne. Here’s your chance to see and hear individual voices of the orchestra, up close and personal!
Taking the model of the football Fan Zone, where a team’s most devoted supporters come together to encourage their players, there’s a Fan Zone for six selected concerts. Instead of being in a separate area viewing the match on a large screen, you’re seated in the organ loft and as close to the orchestra as you can get – cheer on violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, Augustin Hadelich, or Ray Chen, pianist Lukas Sternath, or your favourite conductor leading the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. It’s a new way of getting the audience involved in the music and the players that are part of every orchestra.
Augustin Hadelich
Familiar faces on the concert stage include Martha Argerich, Cecilia Bartoli, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Sir Simon Rattle. Making their Lucerne Festival debut are two celebrated Americans: mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and violinist Hilary Hahn. The Konzerthausorchester Berlin and its charismatic Principal Conductor Joana Mallwitz are in Lucerne for the first time, as is the Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, leading the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Three young keyboard stars, France’s Alexandre Kantorow, Korea’s Yunchan Lim, and Japan’s Hayato Sumino, make their debut as well. Cellist Jan Vogler will join American poet Amanda Gorman to interweave music and poetry. Violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Seong-Jin Cho make their Lucerne debut as a duo with a program of Brahms, Janáček, Beach, and Prokofiev.
Joana Mallwitz
Santtu-Matias Rouvali
Yunchan Lim
With the Festival theme of American Dreams, many American works will be heard at the Lucerne Festival for the first time, including Charles Ives’s First Symphony, Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto, and Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. International works making their Lucerne debut include Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Scriabin’s Third Symphony, and Henze’s Sinfonia N. 9, among many others.
Meute
MEUTE – LoCKeDoWN2
For the final festival weekend, the Hamburg-based ‘Techno Marching Band’, Meute takes the stage. The instruments are all acoustic, and the sound is heavy on bass with propulsive beats.
Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, the Lucerne Festival evolves with the times. This year’s version takes it in a whole new direction, opening up the closed halls to the light, bringing in the performers to expand onto the street, and encouraging young audiences with a Look, Listen, Enjoy program where you can bring along a child for only an additional CH10 (€10.80).
See and hear the music of Lucerne – explore American music – enjoy the world’s virtuosos – and join in the full orchestral experience!
https://www.lucernefestival.ch/en/
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