‘Diversity’ is the theme of the Lucerne Summer Festival 2022
Lucerne Festival Orchestra to perform with Music Director Riccardo Chailly as well as Jakub Hrůša
The Chineke! Youth Orchestra and the Chineke! Orchestra, respectively, will appear at the beginning and end of the Festival
The Lucerne Festival Academy and the LFCO will focus on the work of composer-in-residence Thomas Adès and collaborate with ‘artiste étoile’ Tyshawn Sorey.
Both the composer and multifaceted instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey and the soprano Angel Blue will be ‘artistes étoiles.’
22 orchestras will make guest appearances in Lucerne over a single month; in addition to the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and the Royal Concertgebouworkest, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra are scheduled to appear.
‘Diversity’ is the highly topical and multi-faceted theme of the 2022 Summer Festival. This theme, which is reflected in the artistic programming, addresses social issues of our time: what role does gender, sexual orientation, or ethnic background play in musical life? Thus a focus next summer will for example be on people of color, ethnic minorities who are underrepresented in the industry. But the principle of diversity also shapes the repertoire to be heard on the summer concerts: works will be presented that in themselves are multifaceted or polystylistic, for example incorporating influences from folk music and jazz, from other eras, or even sounds from nature.
The Lucerne Festival Orchestra officially opens the Festival with Music Director Riccardo Chailly on 12 August. Leading up to the Opening, internationally renowned youth orchestras will prepare the mood for the summer of concerts as part of the ‘Music for Future’ initiative. The youth formation of the Chineke! Orchestra, founded by Chi-Chi Nwanoku, will perform the first concert on 9 August. This will be followed by the National Youth Orchestra of the USA as well as an orchestra from Ilumina, a festival and social project that was founded in 2015 in São Paulo. The Lucerne Festival Orchestra will present a new work by Wolfgang Rihm, the Academy’s Artistic Director, as part of the opening program. In addition, Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform a violin concerto by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, in keeping with the Festival theme. Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony can also be heard on the opening evening, and the following day it will be performed in combination with Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, which will be sung by the young South Tyrolean baritone Andrè Schuen. The Rachmaninoff cycle begun in 2019 continues in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra’s third program, which offers the Second Piano Concerto in C minor with Denis Matsuev as the soloist and the Second Symphony in E minor. Jakob Hrůša, who made his debut with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra last summer as a stand-in with an acclaimed interpretation of Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony, now returns for an evening of Czech music, presenting Dvořák’s Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich as the soloist, the Symphony From the New World, and Josef Suk’s Scherzo fantastique.
The Lucerne Festival Academy will once again welcome around 100 musicians, conductors, and composers to Lake Lucerne for three weeks starting on 12 August. The Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) will focus intensively on the work of composer-in-residence Thomas Adès and ‘artiste étoile’ Tyshawn Sorey, both of whom will also collaborate as conductors with the Academy members. Conductor Elena Schwarz, a former participant in the conducting masterclass with Bernard Haitink, will lead the LFCO in Adès’s multimedia piano concerto In Seven Days and a new saxophone concerto by Sorey. Adès himself conducts the world premiere of his new violin concerto for Anne-Sophie Mutter, written as part of the ‘Roche Commissions’ series. Sylvain Cambreling conducts a jubilee concert hailing Wolfgang Rihm on his 70th birthday and Dieter Ammann on his 60th birthday, with Sub Kontor by Rihm and music by Ammann. Both composers will again lead a Composer Seminar for eight international young talents in the summer of 2022. The four former Academy members and members of the JACK Quartet will return to Lucerne to perform a concert with an ensemble from the LFCO as well as an evening with Tyshawn Sorey on percussion.
Two artistic figures who are stylistically extremely versatile will take on the roles of this year’s ‘artistes étoiles’ in the summer of 2022. The New York-based Tyshawn Sorey is a drummer, pianist, trombonist, and composer: he crosses the borders between jazz and contemporary composition and performs both improvisation and scores that call for open playing instructions. The soprano Angel Blue is a regular at the most celebrated international opera houses. She will appear as a soloist in three symphony concerts: she will sing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, a new song cycle by Valerie Coleman with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and selected lieder by Alma Mahler along with Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and led by Jakub Hrůša.
As an international orchestra festival, Lucerne will again be the venue presenting guest performances by the world’s most renowned orchestras and soloists in the summer of 2022. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with Kirill Petrenko and Tabea Zimmermann are on the roster. The Budapest Festival Orchestra will perform the first act from Wagner’s Die Walküre under the baton of Iván Fischer, while Cleveland Orchestra will appear with Franz Welser-Möst, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit, the Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev and Daniil Trifonov, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with Antonio Pappano and Elīna Garanča, Cecilia Bartoli with Les Musiciens du Prince Monaco and Gianluca Capuano, and the Philadelphia Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Lisa Batiashvili and Angel Blue. Haydn’s Creation is on the Royal Concertgebouworkest’s program under Philippe Herreweghe, the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle will focus on Sibelius and Bruckner, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim will collaborate with Lang Lang, and the Vienna Philharmonic will appear with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the winner of the 2020 Credit Suisse Young Artist Award Valentine Michaud. A second program by the Vienna Philharmonic will present Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, with Yuja Wang as the soloist. The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra continues its residency at the Festival with Chief Conductor Michael Sanderling. Juan Diego Flórez will perform with the Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra and Roberto González-Monjas, while Graziella Contratto will conduct the MythenEnsembleOrchestral. In the räsonanz Donor Concert, which is the Festival’s collaboration with the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra under Susanna Mälkki will perform the piano concerto Gram Toccata by Dieter Ammann, with Andreas Haefliger as the soloist, as well as works by Kaija Saariaho, Per Nøgård, and Jean Sibelius. The Festival’s closing concert will present the Chineke! Orchestra from England, with Kevin John Edusei on the podium and Sheku Kanneh-Mason as the soloist.
Other prominent names can be found on the Festival calendar. Among them are Igor Levit, Víkingur Ólafsson, Sir András Schiff, Sol Gabetta, and Kristian Bezuidenhout. Thomas Adès and Kirill Gerstein will give a duo recital. The Debut series plans to feature trumpeter Aaron Akugbo, cellist Zoltán Despond, violinist Randall Goosby, pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen, violinist Samuel Nebyu, cellist Abel Selaocoe, and the Viano String Quartet.
Further information on the Festival’s varied offerings, such as the Family concerts in the ‘Music for Future’ category, ‘In the Streets,’ 40min, additional contemporary projects, and the cooperation with the Lucerne Theater will follow on 8 March 2022, when the complete summer program will be announced.
John Rhodes has provided a summary of the leading events
10th August 2022: National Youth Orchestra of the USA, cond. Daniel Harding: Mahler’s 5th Symphony
12th,13th August 2022: Lucerne Festival Orchestra, cond. Riccardo Chailly: Mahler’s 1st Symphony plus Anne-Sophie Mutter
14th August 2022: Piano recital Sir András Schiff
14th August 2022: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, cond. Daniel Barenboim: Smetana’s Má vlast
15th August 2022: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, cond. Daniel Barenboim: Ravel, de Falla, Debussy with Lang Lang
17th August 2022: Lucerne Festival Orchestra, cond. Riccardo Chailly, soloist Denis Matsuev: Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto and 2nd Symphony
18th August 2022: piano recital Igor Levit
19th August 2022. Lucerne Festival Orchestra cond. Jakub Hrůša: Dvořák’s 9th Symphony
21st August 2022: Mariinsky Orchestra cond. Valery Gergiev: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
22nd August 2022: Mariinsky Orchestra cond. Valery Gergiev: Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony
23rd August 2022: Budapest Festival Orchestra cond. Iván Fischer: Wagner: Die Walküre (Act I – concert performance)
24th August 2022: Recital by Sol Gabetta and Kristian Bezuidenhout
25th August 2022: NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester cond. Alan Gilbert: Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (semi-staged)
26th August 2022: Lucerne Symphony Orchestra cond. Michael Sanderling: Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony
28th August 2022: Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia cond. Antonio Pappano: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade
29th August 2022: Concertgebouw cond. Philippe Herreweghe: Collegium Vocale Gent: Haydn’s The Creation
30th August 2022: Helsinki Philharmonic cond. Susanna Mälkki: Sibelius’s Tapiola
31st August 2022: Berlin Philharmonic cond. Kirill Petrenko: Mahler’s 7th Symphony
1st September 2022: Berlin Philharmonic cond. Kirill Petrenko: Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony
3rd September 2022: London Symphony Orchestra cond. Sir Simon Rattle: Bruckner’s 7th Symphony
4th September 2022 (11am): London Symphony Orchestra cond. Sir Simon Rattle: Sibelius’s 7th Symphony
4th September 2022 (6.30pm): The Philadelphia Orchestra cond. Yannick Nézet-Séguin: Brahms’s 1st Symphony
5th September 2022: The Philadelphia Orchestra cond. Yannick Nézet-Séguin: Dvořák’s 7th Symphony
6th September 2022: Vienna Philharmonic cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen: Messaien’s Turangalîla Symphony
7th September 2022: Vienna Philharmonic cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen: Sibelius’s 2nd Symphony
8th September 2022: The Cleveland Orchestra cond. Franz Welser-Möst: Bruckner’s 9th Symphony
9th September 2022: The Cleveland Orchestra cond. Franz Welser-Möst: Schubert’s 9th Symphony
10th September 2022: Bamberg Symphony cond. Jakob Hrůša: Mahler’s 4th Symphony
11th September 2022: Chineke! Orchestra! cond. Kevin John Edusei with Sheku Kanneh-Mason: Shostakovich’s 2nd Cello Concerto
For further details of these and all else at the Festival click here.