Musikfest Berlin 2026: The complete programme has been published
From 28 August to 23 September 2026, the Berlin concert season starts with Musikfest Berlin, organised by the Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation – and will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele. In 36 events, Berlin-based orchestras and choirs will be joined by international orchestras and ensembles, including the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, Le Concert des Nations, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and many soloists. The complete programme has been published and advance ticket sales starts today at 2 pm; accreditation opens in June.
The Berliner Festspiele open this year’s Musikfest Berlin with György Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre to mark and celebrate their 75th anniversary. Ligeti was one of the most influential composers at the Berliner Festwochen, first held in 1951. Around the opening weekend, a range of further anniversary events organised by the Berliner Festspiele are planned at various venues, including the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Gropius Bau and the circle railway. Following the festival opening, which will feature a keynote speech by Meron Mendel, the programme for Musikfest Berlin 2026 will continue to play on numerous references to the history of the Berliner Festspiele.
It reminds the early days of the 1950s and the development of a continuous East-West dialogue in the 1970s and 1980s with composers of the Soviet Russian post-war avant-garde. It also builds on the tradition of international guest performances featuring non-European perspectives and presents contemporary composers who have been associated with the Berliner Festspiele for many years, such as Igor Stravinsky, Wolfgang Rihm, Hans Werner Henze and Sofia Gubaidulina.
In addition to Le Grand Macabre, there are other semi-staged concert formats and operas to enjoy: a new production by Cape Town Opera and the Chineke! Orchestra of George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess (German premiere at Berliner Festwochen 1952); Wolfgang Rihm’s Tutuguri with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra; the Deutsche Oper Berlin production of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s opera Mittwoch aus Licht directed by Susanne Kennedy. The Salzburger Marionettentheater is performing at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele with Igor Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat, directed by Matthias Bundschuh and designed by Georg Baselitz, featuring a soloist ensemble curated by Isabelle Faust and Dominique Horwitz as narrator. Travelling from Tokyo, the Kanze Nō Theatre Ensemble and its famous leading actor and grand master Kiyokazu Kanze VIXX will present two Nō plays and a Kyōgen comedy at the Philharmonie Berlin. The following day, as part of a joint educational project between Musikfest Berlin and the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, Grand Master Kanze will offer Berlin schoolchildren an insight into this traditional art form.
To mark the 100th anniversary of Hans Werner Henze’s birth on 1 July 2026, the Musikfest Berlin will pay tribute to his work with a performance of Die Musen Siziliens (premiered in 1966 at the Berliner Festwochen), the piano concerto Tristan with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Tamara Stefanovich as soloist, and Sinfonia No. 9 (premiered in 1997 at the Berliner Festwochen as a commissioned work) with the Konzerthausorchester and the Rundfunkchor Berlin.
A rediscovery brings another female composer into the spotlight: 80 years after it was written, the 15-movement orchestral poem La Sainte Face by Yvonne Loriod will receive its world premiere with the WDR Sinfonieorchester, conducted by Kent Nagano. The following day, the WDR Symphony Orchestra is bringing a special guest to the Berlin Philharmonie: Das Konzert mit der Maus celebrates its Berlin debut, inviting the youngest audience members to enjoy music, funny and factual stories all about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
There will be no shortage of concerts devoted to music written today, including works by Milica Djordjević and Clara Iannotta, as well as world premieres by Alex Nante, Márton Illés and Enno Poppe. The music personalities Brett Dean, Cathy Milliken and Liza Lim are united by their Australian heritage and a transnational artistic presence. Their works can be heard in a concert by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Simone Young, and in two programmes by the Berliner Philharmoniker featuring Brett Dean and Sir Simon Rattle as conductors, as well as in a chamber music setting during a late-night performance.
The festival programme brings together works from the contemporary and early modern periods with the classical and Romantic repertoire, featuring music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Benjamin Britten, Anton Bruckner, Claude Debussy, Antonín Dvořák, Manuel de Falla, Leoš Janáček, Gustav Mahler, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergej Prokofjew, Sergej Rachmaninow, Robert Schumann, Peter Tschaikowsky and Richard Wagner.
More than 60 works will be presented by some 40 composers at the Philharmonie Berlin, in its Chamber Music Hall, the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Alongside the orchestras and choirs from the musical capital Berlin, over 65 international soloists and more than 30 instrumental and vocal ensembles will perform, from Finland, Spain, the USA, Switzerland, Austria, South Africa, England, Japan and Germany.
Musikfest Berlin is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
In collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation.
Media partners: radio3 (rbb), Deutschlandfunk Kultur, arte, Dussmann das Kulturkaufhaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Monopol – Magazin für Kunst und Leben, Tagesspiegel, Wall and Yorck Kinogruppe.