2026/2027 season

The Gewandhaus is planning its 2026/27 season in the spirit of freedom

The centrepiece of the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig’s 2026/27 season is the Beethoven Festival Leipzig 2027, marking the 200th anniversary of his death. Kicking off the season with a Democracy Weekend, alongside high-profile thematic focuses, significant anniversaries, and world and premiere performances, this central event forms the basis for a season that views music as a stance – as a resonant space for questions of freedom, responsibility, memory and the future. 

Advance sales for concert tickets for the 2026/2027 season, which begins in September (including the Beethoven Festival), will start on 27 June 2026. Season ticket holders and Gewandhauscard holders can purchase tickets from 13 June 2026. 

BEETHOVEN FESTIVAL LEIPZIG 2027 (9–23 May 2027)

In 2027, the music world will turn its attention to Leipzig for a festival of international renown. All of his symphonies, key instrumental concertos, a chamber music series featuring outstanding performers, and projects bridging tradition and contemporary reflection will present Beethoven not as a historical figure, but as a radically contemporary artist whose music continues to exert a social, political and artistic influence to this day. World stars such as Lang Lang, Igor Levit and Leonidas Kavakos will encounter new perspectives from jazz, crossover and experimental formats. The 9th Symphony will be performed in 2027 in several contexts: as an open-air event at Klassik airleben, at the turn of the year, as a New Year’s concert, in a participatory project for Leipzig with the Stegreif Orchestra, and in a chamber music version for soloists, choir, two pianos and timpani. Beethoven’s incidental music to Goethe’s Egmont, in a new libretto by Michael Lentz (commissioned by the Gewandhaus Orchestra) and narrated by Tobias Moretti, sets the tone for the programme. Against the backdrop of current social tensions, this work about oppression, the struggle for freedom and the indomitable spirit of the individual takes on a particularly urgent relevance.  

»Music is a mirror of its time – and at the same time a window into the future. What we hear today is always connected to what was created yesterday. A vibrant dialogue emerges between tradition and innovation, constantly transforming music.«

SEASON OPENING: DEMOCRACY WEEKEND ‘READING THE SIGNS’ (4–6 SEPTEMBER 2026)

Conceptually, the season opener already addresses key themes of the Beethoven Festival. The Democracy Weekend ‘Reading the Signs’ brings together music, discourse and social reflection. It explores the interpretation of the signs of our times and where interpretation tips over into over-interpretation, oversimplification or conspiracy theories. Saša Stanišić will deliver the ‘Address on Democracy’ at the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s season-opening concert, conducted by Andris Nelsons. Discussion forums in the main foyer build on the Leipzig tradition of the “Encounters at the Gewandhaus” from 1989. With the Stegreif Orchestra’s “Free roica” project, which also invites participants to a workshop on making music together, Beethoven’s idea of freedom becomes a tangible experience. 

ARTISTIC PHILOSOPHY AND LEGACY: KURT MASUR AND HERBERT BLOMSTEDT ON THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR BIRTH

Two leading conductors, whose careers are inextricably linked to the Gewandhaus, stand as exemplars of artistic integrity and social responsibility. The commemoration of Kurt Masur combines musical legacy with historical responsibility. Programmes featuring works from his core repertoire, commissioned compositions and rediscovered treasures paint a picture of a conductor who understood music as an existential expression. A symposium as part of the Beethoven Festival honours Masur as a creative force, musician and defining figure of Leipzig.

Herbert Blomstedt is honoured with a selection of concerts that reflect his lifelong engagement with the core symphonic repertoire – particularly the symphonies of Anton Bruckner. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, he will conduct the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Bruckner’s 5th Symphony – a moment of particular symbolic significance.

FOCUS: GEWANDHAUS COMPOSER ARVO PÄRT

With Arvo Pärt, the Gewandhaus places one of the most influential composers of our time at the centre. The season showcases the breadth of his work, from his experimental early pieces to the ‘Tintinnabuli’ style. Pärt’s Symphony No. 3 will be performed for the first time in the Great Concert Hall; orchestral and choral works such as Orient & Occident or the Berlin Mass unfold a sonic world in which reduction becomes intensity.

FOCUS: ‘TACHELES’ INCLUDING THE MENDELSSOHN FESTIVAL

The Gewandhaus programme’s contribution to the ‘Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony’ brings Jewish musical heritage to life, both past and present. Hans Gál’s cantata De profundis (composed in exile in 1936) forms a central highlight. The Gewandhaus also pays tribute to Bruno Walter, the 13th Gewandhaus Kapellmeister, with the first performance of his rarely heard piano quintet. This season, the Mendelssohn Festival is also integrated into the ‘Tacheles’ focus. The highlight of this thematic focus is Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny – a concert performance of the opera, which premiered at Leipzig’s Neues Theater in 1930, conducted by HK Gruber.

NEW MUSIC & COMMUNITY MUSIC

World premieres and German premieres provide further highlights of the season, including Detlev Glanert’s Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra, new commissioned works by Steffen Schleiermacher (to mark the 100th anniversary of Kurt Masur’s birth) and Jörg Widmann (as part of the Beethoven Festival), as well as the German premiere of the completed Symphony No. 6 Symphony in C major by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (completed by Luukas Hiltunen). With a series of events as part of Community Music, the Gewandhaus is embedding participatory formats into the institution’s profile – from the ‘Bunte Bühnenbande’ to the multi-generational club, which is working with the Stegreif Orchestra on a re-composition of Beethoven’s Ninth. In the 2026/27 season, the Gewandhaus presents itself as a venue in the music city of Leipzig that is both steeped in tradition and wide awake: at the Gewandhaus, music is not a retreat, but a stance. It is dialogue, memory and vision all at once.