Mavericks and Torchbearers

The 2017 Dresden Music Festival celebrates its 40th Season with an Exquisite Program – and a New Concert Hall

Il Dresden Music Festival celebrates its 40th Festival season from May 18 to June 18, 2017 with an especially dazzling program. Having chosen »LIGHT« as the season motto, Intendant Jan Vogler has invited world-renowned artists and orchestras to Dresden for this coming year, ensuring brilliant moments in 58 events spread throughout the performance venues as well as a guest appearance in Berlin. 

»The theme of ›LIGHT‹ describes the perpetual human vision of Enlightenment. Music creates awareness, brings people together and opens new perspectives. It is a major factor in healing communities and societies. The program of the 2017 Dresden Music Festival presents many mavericks and revolutionaries among the artistic stars of the music world. Together with these wonderful artists, diverse programs and varied performance venues, the 2017 Dresden Music Festival is blazing new trails in the presentation of classical music,« Jan Vogler said in Dresden.

International stars such as Diana Damrau, Bryn Terfel, Max Raabe and Bill Murray celebrate the 40th season in the history of the Dresden Music Festival together with the audience in 2017.

The launch of the Festival sees a reunion with the legendary violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Philharmonia Zurich under Fabio Luisi at the Semperoper. During the four Festival weeks, more than 20 different performance venues welcome artists including the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre under Valery Gergiev, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Gimeno and the Orchestre de Paris with Kate Lindsey under Thomas Hengelbrock, performing works by musical »torchbearers« such as Bach, Beethoven, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. The MDR Symphony Orchestra under Kristjan Järvi contributes a Martin Luther film-concert to the 2017 theme of »500 Years of Reformation«, for which the Dresden-based composer Sven Helbig is currently writing the music. The pianist Francesco Tristano and the organist Cameron Carpenter continue the series »Classical Beats«, offering concert concepts specifically tailored to a younger audience. 

The London Philharmonic Orchestra is the Festival’s orchestra in residence, performing two concerts in Dresden under Vladimir Jurowski – and inaugurating the freshly renovated Concert Hall at Dresden’s Kulturpalast together with pianist Jan Lisiecki and cellist Steven Isserlis. The reopening of this hall in April 2017 after five years of elaborate reconstruction not only restores a traditional performance venue to the Dresden Music Festival, but also gives the city a modern, acoustically high-class concert hall on par with its European counterparts. 

After celebrated concerts during the past five years, the Dresden Festival Orchestra releases its first CD on SONY Classical on October 21, 2016. The studio recording of Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 and Cello Concerto took place in May of this year, conducted by Ivor Bolton and featuring cellist Jan Vogler as soloist. For the 40th edition of the Dresden Music Festival, the Orchestra, which uses historical instruments, strives to reproduce the original sound of works by Beethoven, Strauss and Wagner. With its extraordinarily vivid interpretations, the orchestra makes its first appearance outside of Dresden on June 10, 2017 at Berlin’s Philharmonie, with Waltraud Meier as soloist. And for the brilliant finale of the 40th Dresden Music Festival, the Dresden Festival Orchestra joins the young artists of the »Bohème 2020«, which has been developing at the Dresden Music Festival since 2014, for its own rendition of Beethoven’s opera »Leonore«, the original version of »Fidelo«. 

Patronage, sponsors and partners

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, has assumed the patronage of the 2017 Dresden Music Festival. 

The Dresden Music Festival continues to expand, pursuing its goal of becoming one of the world’s most important music festivals: for the 2017 season, 11,000 additional concert tickets will be offered, compared to last season. 

A high-carat program such as that of the 40th Dresden Music Festival could not be implemented without supporters and sponsors. We thank the State Capital City of Dresden, the Free State of Saxony and our partners, Volkswagen AG and Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden. The watchmaking company Glashütte Original continues its sponsorship of the Dresden Music Festival in 2017 and once again presents the Glashütte Original MusicFestivalAward as part of the Festival. 

»The Dresden Music Festival stands for building bridges beetween classical concert experiences and new musical impressions in a truely exceptional manner. Thus the Festival attracts an national an international audience and we are very glad that we can make a contribution that in 2017 tens of thousands of guests will experience music from unique perspectives in Dresden,« said Benita von Maltzahn, Head of Cultural and Social Engagament, before the press conference. 

»The Dresden Music Festival has offered a stage to national and international artists in our city for many decades. Then Dresden turns into a vibrant center an invites guest from all over the world to celebrate art togheter. As a long-time partner of the Music Festival we present the concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra on 22 May 2017 at the Kulturpalast: an outstand international ensemble in Dresden’s new concert hall. According to the 2017 motto it will turn into a new »point of light« in our city and for the Music Festival,« added Andreas Rieger, company spokesman Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden.         

Tickets for the 2017 season go on sale on October 1, 2016.

Tickets can be purchased by mail (Visitor Services of the Dresden Music Festival, P. O. Box 10 04 53, 01074 Dresden, Germany), via email (Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo.), on the internet (www.musikfestspiele.com), by phone (+49 351/656 06 700) or in person at the Visitor Services Office (Weiße Gasse 8, 01067 Dresden).

News on the Dresden Music Festival can be found on www.musikfestspiele.com or on  Facebook and Twitter