As the calendar flips to 2025, Europe's classical music scene is set to dazzle audiences with a series of remarkable events. From the depths of Baroque masterpieces to the vibrant tones of 20th-century compositions, these festivals bring together maestros, singers, and orchestras in a celebration of musical artistry. With performances spanning Halle to Leipzig, each event promises a unique journey through the historical and cultural tapestry of music. Join us as we explore these captivating concerts, each with its own story to tell.

A Symphony of Culture: Exploring the 2025 European Classical Music Festivals

Join us on a captivating journey through orchestral and cultural landscapes as we delve into a series of concerts and recitals spanning February to May 2026. With performances featuring renowned conductors like Andris Nelsons, Alain Altinoglu, and Manfred Honeck, these events bring together creative masterpieces from Mendelssohn to Brahms and beyond. Immerse yourself in the expressive power of music as it paints stories of hope, history, and human experience, while celebrating Jewish culture and exploring themes of peace, reconciliation, and the end of the world.

Exploring the Symphony: A Journey Through Time and Culture

In 2026, Saxony embarks on a cultural journey with a 'Year of Jewish Culture,' commemorating 100 years since the founding of the first Saxon state association of Jewish communities. The celebration is marked by diverse events, including concerts, operas, and choral performances that highlight Jewish heritage and broader artistic themes. From the evocative chamber concert 'Tacheles' in Leipzig to the grand Gastkonzert operas in Dresden, this year promises to touch the hearts of many. Join us as we explore these unique cultural expressions and the talented artists who bring them to life.

Celebrating Centuries: Saxony's Year of Jewish Culture and More

It was his involvement with musical theater, music education, and his turn to historical music that led Carl Orff to his "archaic" compositional style. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he looked back and led the audience of Carmina Burana into a world of medieval songs from the 11th to 13th centuries, in which people were not afraid to attack the church and society and to praise sensual and depraved life. The evocative power of the rhythm in the music, the extraordinary use of instruments, and the declamatory vocal style have lost none of their gripping urgency to this day.

Carmina burana

Gewandhaus

The new chief conductor of the MDR Radio Choir charts musical paths through European landscapes in this nocturnal performance. The journey takes us from the cold north to the warm south, through centuries of music history, and across genres and styles. An exciting and colorful concert, with echoes from Josep Vila i Casañas's Catalan homeland.

Reise durch Europa

St. Peter's Church

Gastkonzert: Herr der Ringe

Arena Leipzig

EPSG:4326

Gastkonzert in Baden-Baden

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Three piano concertos in a single evening – each one building a bridge to the past. Maurice Ravel composed his Piano Concerto in G “in the spirit of Mozart,” yet it also shimmers with hints of jazz and Basque folk music. In Credo, Arvo Pärt draws on the famous C major Prelude from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, juxtaposing familiar tonality with avant-garde techniques. And György Kurtág – who celebrated his 100th birthday in February 2026 – looks back to the free associations of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Op. 27 piano sonatas in his mesmerizing spatial work … quasi una fantasia …, which positions the instruments all around the audience. These three strikingly different concertos are set alongside America – A Prophecy, a dark, apocalyptic vision by the British composer Thomas Adès, who conducts the performance himself. The work confronts the destruction of Mayan culture by the Spanish conquistadors, with a soprano cast in the role of a warning seer. And at the very start of the concert,  in György Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique, 100 metronomes will begin ticking at the same time. One by one, they gradually fall silent. When the last metronome stops, says Víkingur Ólafsson, it feels “like the end of life.”

Mahler Chamber Orchestra | MDR Radio Choir | Thomas Adès | Víkingur Ólafsson | Anna Dennis

KKL Luzern Concert Hall

Music paints images, bodies tell stories. In "Silhouettes," choral sound and movement merge into a performance between light and darkness. Voices and gestures create fleeting images that linger in space and time—sometimes delicate and shimmering, sometimes powerful and mysterious. What remains when the light fades? What hides in the shadows? The MDR Children's Choir and eight members of the MDR Radio Choir musically explore the spaces between the visible and the invisible.

Silhouetten

Schaubühne Lindenfels

Guest Concert

Konzerthaus Dortmund

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

The great Austrian repertoire, from Strauss and Strauss to Mahler and Berg, is in the best hands with Manfred Honeck, a native of Vorarlberg. And because the 2026 Hamburg International Music Festival is dedicated to the theme of "The End," Honeck will be performing the most monumental vision of the end of the world by an Austrian composer of the 20th century at the opening concert: Franz Schmidt's setting of the apocalypse, "The Book with Seven Seals." Outstanding singers and choirs are a must here.

Franz Schmidt: The Book with the Seven Seals / Manfred Honeck

George Frideric Handel composed his Messiah, which tells the Christian story of salvation in three parts, between 1741 and 1742. Mozart's version was written for a performance in Vienna in 1789; he adapted Handel's composition to suit contemporary audiences' tastes, ensuring its greater success. He replaced the English text with a German translation and altered the instrumentation to better reflect contemporary sound ideals. He incorporated the latest developments in playing technique and instrument making, and employed the newly invented clarinets. Mozart left the composition untouched—a sign of his respect for the master from Halle/Saale.

Mozarts Messias

Theater Erfurt

Explaining his orchestral arrangement of Brahms's First Piano Quartet, Arnold Schoenberg told a music critic: "1. I love the piece. 2. It is rarely played. 3. It is always played very poorly because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you can't hear anything from the strings." In the end, Schoenberg created a new soundscape that develops a completely unique appeal without denying its origins. Complemented by Brahms's own arrangement of the Liebeslieder Waltzes and Richard Strauss's setting of Goethe's Op. 14, this program is conducted by Giuseppe Mengoli, one of the most versatile young conductors of our time.

Lieben Sie Brahms?

Congress Centrum Suhl

Gastkonzert in Dresden

Kulturpalast

This nocturnal hymn explores the a cappella literature with contributions on the theme of "Ruins and Hope." The essence: Just as humanity carries within itself the will to destroy, it is also capable of reconciliation and hope. St. Peter's Church, as an architectural representation of destruction and reconstruction, is the perfect concert venue for this program.

Hope for Peace

Kulturpalast Dresden

In 2026, the Free State of Saxony will celebrate a statewide "Year of Jewish Culture" – 100 years after the founding of the first Saxon state association of Jewish communities. Under the title "Tacheles," projects, events, and exhibitions will make Saxony's rich Jewish culture and history, past, present, and future, as well as irretrievable losses, visible and audible for a year. Our chamber concert also addresses this theme, featuring well-known and lesser-known compositions from a wide variety of genres spanning approximately one hundred years of Jewish musical creation.

Tacheles

Augustusplatz

Guest Concert in Frankfurt

Alte Oper Frankfurt

Guest Concert at Gewandhaus Leipzig

Guest Concert for the 20th anniversary of the Leipzig University Orchestra

Like the MDR Symphony Orchestra, our chamber music series focuses on Joseph Haydn—particularly on the compositions he composed during his two stays in England in 1791/92 and 1794/95. This includes a selection of folk song arrangements from Scottish and Welsh sources, as well as two of the four so-called London Trios for two flutes and cello. The program is complemented by the incredibly charming Harmoniemusik from Mozart's Don Giovanni, arranged by Joseph Triebensee around 1810. Incidentally, the Bohemian composer and oboist himself participated in the premiere of The Magic Flute under Mozart's direction.

Wiener Klassik

Guest Concert in Freiburg

Freiburg Concert Hall

Guest Concert in Stuttgart

Kultur- & Kongresszentrum Liederhalle

Josep Vila i Casañas, the new chief conductor of the MDR Radio Choir, captures the spirit of Christmas with music from various regions of Spain. The main work of the concert is "Nit de Nadal" (Christmas Eve), an oratorio by one of Catalonia's most important composers and musicians, Joan Lamote de Grignon. He composed it at the turn of the 20th century based on poems by the Catalan composer Francesc Casas i Amigó, combining folk music elements with a post-Wagnerian style to create a moving, musically late-Romantic narrative about the events of Christmas Eve.

¡Navidad!

When the first candle burns on the Advent wreath and bright strings of lights begin to glow in the windows, when the calendar doors are gradually opened and the kitchen smells of cinnamon stars, gingerbread, and almond cookies – then it's Advent. And, of course, familiar Christmas melodies also put us in the mood for the festive season. That's why the MDR Children's Choir is touring with concerts, especially in the run-up to Christmas. For many years, it has been a tradition for the MDR Children's Choir to awaken anticipation of Christmas in its broadcast area with cheerful, contemplative songs.

A Thousand Stars

Dreieinigkeitskirche Zeulenroda

In 1852, Robert Schumann composed the Missa sacra for church services – a work that expresses not a denominational but a universal religious sentiment. The motet "Do Not Despair," initially described by Schumann as a "religious hymn," was first performed on July 4, 1850, for a secular occasion – the 25th anniversary of the St. Pauli University Choir in Leipzig. Haydn's Fifth London Symphony demonstrates the composer's independence from courtly taste and circumstances: He presents this work with pathos, earnestness, passion – and, unusually, in a minor key – thus forging a programmatic link back to Schumann.

Verzweifle nicht!

His era's enthusiasm for the oratorio genre also inspired Antonín Dvořák, who significantly advanced the national tone poem in this genre. The plot of The Ghost Bride is taken from a popular ballad by the Czech poet Karel Jaromír Erben: A pious girl longs to be reunited with her lover, who was lost in the war. Having fallen in battle, the latter seeks her out as an undead bridegroom and attempts to lead the bride to eternal damnation. Seemingly on her way to him, she is gradually forced to discard all signs of her faith. But in the end, her faith prevails and saves her from the realm of the dead.

Love & Damnation

Never has the creation of the world been captured in music in a more vivid and exciting way: Joseph Haydn's entire compositional artistry, skill, and innovative power flowed into his creation. It reflects the ideas of the Enlightenment, whose focus is no longer God, but rather humanity as a mature being. While influences from Handel are evident musically, Haydn's orchestral treatment already reaches into 19th-century realms. With this concert, Josep Vila i Casañas assumes his position as the new Chief Conductor of the MDR Radio Choir.

Creation

Leopold Stokowski, a great admirer of Bach, examined his works under the microscope and, with the aid of modern instruments, "magnified" the Baroque master's sound world into an orchestral experience. Taneyev, on the other hand, demonstrated an affinity for historical compositional styles, whose polyphonic compositional artistry even inspired admiration from his teacher Tchaikovsky. The cantata, little known in this country, tells of the last hours of John of Damascus in a haunting choral-symphonic movement. In contrast, Shostakovich chose a very secular theme for his cantata, which, in a historicizing way, was a parable of the brutal oppression in his time.

Kantaten

Te Deum

Marktplatz Halle

In Italy, a whole new world opened up to Handel and the Te Deum by Francesco Antonio Urio was part of it. Urio’s compositions enthused the young man from Halle so much that he drew inspiration from them for several of his own works. For example, he borrowed sections from the Te Deum for his oratorio, Saul. Baroque legend Reinhard Goebel, together with the MDR Radio Choir and Staatskapelle Halle, gives us another opportunity to hear this profound piece of music.

F. A. Urio: Te Deum

The Market Church

The Marriage of Alessandro

Dom zu Halle

Kicking off this “Italian” Handel Festival is the historic revival of the first Italian version of Alexander’s Feast. It was an English Lord who infected the Grand Duke of Tuscany – later Emperor Leopold II – with a love of Handel’s oratorios. On 21 April 1768, the first ever performance of Alexander’s Feast on the continent took place in Lord Cowper’s villa outside the gates of Florence, followed two days later by a performance

MDR Radio Choir

Jun 28, 2026

Carmina burana

Jun 6, 2026

Reise durch Europa

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