Lucerne Festival | Forward 2026 “Echoes of Schumann“

Lucerne Festival is internationally recognized as one of the world's leading classical music festivals. Lucerne Festival is structured around its flagship multi-week Summer Festival, complemented by several satellite festivals held throughout the year, each with a distinct artistic focus. For the first time, the autumn festival, Forward, dedicated to contemporary music will be curated by Jörg Widmann.

Under Sebastian Nordmann’s directorship, the Forward contemporary music festival continues to evolve: Jörg Widmann, the Lucerne Festival Academy’s new Artistic Director, will shape the program of the fall festival as curator. Forward has been held annually since 2021 and in 2026 will take place from 20 to 22 November. The musicians of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) remain at the core, but now within the framework of a new concept. The idea is to explore connections to the music of a classical composer and how that music “echoes” in the present day.

“Echoes of Schumann”: Lucerne Festival Forward brings old and new into dialogue and explores the fascination that Robert Schumann continues to hold for composers today Also appearing are Matthias Goerne, Heinz Holliger, Christian Jost, Fatma Said, Sir András Schiff, Johanna Summer, Antoine Tamestit, and, of course, the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO).

“It poses the questions: where do we come from and where are we headed? Is the music of the past still relevant to us? How do we, as people living today, respond to what already exists?” explains curator Jörg Widmann, outlining the core of the new Forward concept. Sebastian Nordmann comments: “Contemporary music today needs to feel approachable and to engage with audiences. Jörg Widmann is the ideal mediator to ignite that spark.”

The festival presents a total of five concerts over three days, during the course of a long weekend. The five concerts focus on musical connections to Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen, Märchenbilder, Dichterliebe, and Nachtlied for choir and orchestra. Why does Schumann’s music resonate so strongly today? “I think it has to do with the fractured, torn quality of his music: one moment ecstatic, the next plunged into despair. I also sensed this in my conversations with Kurtág, Holliger, and Jost, all of whom have spent their lives engaging with Schumann.”