The Prague Spring has unveiled its 2026 programme, bringing together a hundred artists, ensembles, and orchestras from twenty-eight countries
The 81st Prague Spring International Music Festival will take place from 12 May to 4 June 2026, presenting more than sixty events, including 38 concerts, 19 workshops and masterclasses, and 7 accompanying events such as the traditional Prague Spring Art Salon exhibition. In the year marking the eightieth anniversary of its founding, the festival will welcome 97 artists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras from 28 countries around the world. The festival itself will be preceded by the 77th Prague Spring International Music Competition, held from 6 to 14 May. Ticket sales for the 81st edition open online at festival.cz on 5 November at 11 am.
“Prague Spring is a platform that each year offers audiences the very best of both the international and Czech classical music scenes. Alongside world-renowned stars, it also presents the most gifted young musicians at the start of their artistic careers. The 81st festival continues this tradition, its programme once again spanning the musical spectrum from the Renaissance to contemporary composers,” says the Director of the festival, Milan Němeček.
“The 2026 edition stands out for its major vocal-instrumental projects. We will also welcome a number of leading orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, inseparably linked with the festival’s founder Rafael Kubelík. After fifty-two years, Martha Argerich returns to Prague Spring, while Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä will be back after three years. The programme includes a recital by Eric Lu, the recent winner of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, as well as many festival debuts, particularly among the world’s foremost vocal stars. Appearing at the festival for the first time will be Elīna Garanča, Benjamin Bernheim, Kang Wang, and, above all, the Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, the Prague Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence,” notes the Festival’s Artistic Director, Josef Třeštík. “We will also showcase an entire generation of leading Czech conductors: Petr Popelka, Jakub Hrůša, Tomáš Netopil, Tomáš Hanus, Václav Luks, and Robert Jindra. And finally, I would like to draw attention to Prague Offspring’s 2026 Composer-in Residence, Unsuk Chin,” he adds.
Artist-in-Residence: Barbara Hannigan
Barbara Hannigan ranks among the most original artists of the 21st century. As a singer, she has premiered more than a hundred works and collaborated with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Salvatore Sciarrino, George Benjamin and Hans Abrahamsen. She is Principal Guest Conductor of the Göteborgs Symfoniker, Associate Artist of the London Symphony Orchestra, and première artiste invitée of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. In the autumn of 2026 she will become Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Her exceptional artistic profile is underscored by numerous prestigious awards, including Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year and the 2025 Polar Music Prize – the Swedish award founded by ABBA’s publisher and manager Stig Anderson – which she received alongside jazz legend Herbie Hancock and the rock band Queen. In 2025 she was also named Musical America Artist of the Year.
Her extensive residency at Prague Spring 2026 will comprise five projects – four concerts and one masterclass. The Canadian singer and conductor will appear in two chamber programmes with pianist Bertrand Chamayou and the Belcea Quartet, and in two orchestral projects with the Czech Philharmonic, which she will conduct for the first time in her career. “I am deeply looking forward to being artist in residence at the Prague Spring Festival, to which I am bringing two orchestral programs to perform with Czech Philharmonic, and two programs with treasured colleagues. First of all, Poulenc’s opera La Voix humaine, in which I am both singing and conducting the work simultaneously. This will be the Czech premiere of this project, which involves live video by means of 3 cameras placed within the orchestra, and a large screen behind the players,” says Barbara Hannigan of her festival residency. Her orchestral programmes will range from works by Joseph Haydn to 20th-century composers such as Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg, George Gershwin, Richard Strauss and the aforementioned Francis Poulenc. Once again combining the dual roles of singer and conductor, she will perform a suite from Gershwin’s musical Girl Crazy, for which she won a Grammy Award in 2018. Her chamber performances will feature works by Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Hindemith and Olivier Messiaen, as well as the Czech premiere of Jumalattaret, an extraordinarily powerful song cycle by American composer and jazz musician John Zorn, set to texts from the Finnish epic Kalevala.
Opening concert to celebrate 100 years of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
In 2026, the Prague Spring International Music Festival will open with Bedřich Smetana’s cycle of symphonic poems My Country, entrusted this year to conductor Petr Popelka and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, which will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding. “To open the Prague Spring Festival with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra is above all a tremendous joy, because this festival is very close to my heart. I’m truly delighted that in this way we can celebrate the orchestra’s centenary in a beautiful and dignified manner,” says Petr Popelka, who will conclude his four-year tenure as the orchestra’s Chief Conductor and Artistic Director with this concert. “Petr Popelka is currently among the most sought-after conductors in the world. In the current season he returns to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra, and makes his debuts with the Berlin and Munich Philharmonics and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. This season is also his final one at the helm of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. Opening the Prague Spring with My Country will be the culmination of their collaboration and a testament to the lasting mark this outstanding Czech conductor has left on the orchestra,” adds Josef Třeštík.
The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra has left an indelible mark on the festival’s history, particularly through its performances of 20th-century music. Highlights include a programme of works by Arthur Honegger conducted by the composer himself (1949), Luigi Nono’s Il canto sospeso under Claudio Abbado (1966), Ravi Shankar’s Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra No. 1 (2005), and Krzysztof Penderecki’s Symphony No. 7 “Seven Gates of Jerusalem” under the composer’s direction (2017). Among Czech composers, the orchestra has presented works by Miloslav Kabeláč, Ladislav Vycpálek, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Ilja Hurník, Otmar Mácha, Svatopluk Havelka, Jan Hanuš and Jan Klusák, as well as the world premiere of Sylvie Bodorová’s oratorio Juda Maccabeus in 2002. My Country has been performed at Prague Spring by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra eleven times in total, first in 1950 under Karel Ančerl and most recently in 2009 under the Polish conductor Antoni Wit.
The Opening Concert on 12 May at 20.00 will take place in the Smetana Hall of the Municipal House and, in cooperation with ČEZ Group, will be broadcast live as part of the Prague Spring Open Air series.
Prague Spring as a festival of vocal-instrumental pieces and world-class singers
One of the defining threads of the 2026 Prague Spring is its focus on large-scale vocal-instrumental works. The programme includes Jakub Jan Ryba’s Stabat Mater and the modern premiere of Antonio Casimir Cartellieri’s oratorio La Purificazione di Maria Virgine (The Purification of the Virgin Mary), performed by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra under its Artistic Director Aapo Häkkinen; Hector Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust conducted by Tomáš Netopil with the Prague Symphony Orchestra; Francis Poulenc’s La Voix humaine with Barbara Hannigan and the Czech Philharmonic; and Jules Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine performed by the National Theatre Orchestra under Robert Jindra. Joseph Haydn’s The Creation will be presented by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Václav Luks, while the 81st edition will conclude with Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem performed by the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under Daniele Gatti.
On 14 May, the Czech premiere of Where are You? by Ondřej Adámek will be performed by Magdalena Kožená, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle in the work’s original line-up. For his Prague Spring debut, conductor Ondřej Soukup has chosen Samuel Barber’s evocative Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the Prague Philharmonia and soprano Simona Šaturová. And Ensemble Modern will perform its first concert on 29 May at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, presenting Akrostichon–Wortspiel by Prague Offspring 2026’s Composer-in-Residence Unsuk Chin, with soprano Sarah Aristidou. In collaboration with the National Theatre, the festival will also feature a new production of Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites, conducted by Hermann Bäumer and directed by Barbora Horáková Joly.
This strong focus on vocal music will also bring a host of outstanding choirs to Prague Spring 2026, including the Choir of the Age of Enlightenment and the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, which premiered Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in 1910. The festival will likewise showcase many of today’s leading vocal artists. Making his Czech debut as Jesus in Massenet’s sacred drama Marie-Magdeleine will be the Australian-Chinese tenor Kang Wang, a finalist in the 2017 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Also making their Czech debuts will be tenor Tuomas Katajala, bass Alexander Vinogradov, soprano Lydia Teuscher and mezzo-soprano Marie Seidler. Further Prague Spring debuts include sopranos Aleksandra Kurzak, Eleonora Buratto and Samantha Clarke; mezzo-sopranos Elīna Garanča, Arnheiður Eiríksdóttir and Štěpánka Pučálková; tenors Benjamin Bernheim, Paul Appleby, Nick Pritchard and Patrick Grahl; baritone Cornelius Uhle; bass-baritone Krešimir Stražanac; and bass Riccardo Zanellato.
European Orchestral Series
As ever, the 81st Prague Spring will feature the world’s leading orchestras – this time all from the European continent. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra will return to the festival after three years under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, performing two programmes on 14 and 15 May. Klaus Mäkelä, in one of his final appearances as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, will pair Sibelius’s Lemminkäinen Suite with Czech music – Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor, performed by Truls Mørk, whose recording of the work earned him the prestigious ECHO Klassik Award. After nearly thirty-five years, one of Germany’s finest orchestras, the Berlin-based “think tank” Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, returns to Prague Spring. Following in the footsteps of Lorin Maazel and Vladimir Ashkenazy, the orchestra will this time be led by Czech conductor Tomáš Hanus, joined by the winner of the 2025 Prague Spring International Music Competition, Japanese cellist Yuya Mizuno, as soloist in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major.
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra will make its Prague Spring debut with a programme paying tribute to three luminous figures of the 19th century – Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. The concert will open with a gem rarely heard in the Czech Republic: Cyrano de Bergerac, an overture by the Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar, a work reminiscent of the great Romantic scores of Richard Strauss. After fifty-two years, the legendary pianist Martha Argerich will once again appear at Prague Spring with the orchestra led by its current Chief Conductor Lahav Shani, who will make his festival debut. The festival will conclude with the already mentioned Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under Daniele Gatti.
Alongside these large symphonic ensembles, three leading European representatives of historically informed performance will appear at the 2026 festival. Making its festival debut, the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra will present a fascinating programme drawn from Czech 18th-century music archives. Haydn’s Creation will feature one of the world’s most renowned period-instrument orchestras, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, while the celebrated Academy of St Martin in the Fields returns with a programme of 18th-century music in collaboration with the piano duo Lucas and Arthur Jussen. The Jussen brothers will also give a second Prague Spring performance on 3 June, devoted to 20th- and 21st-century works for two pianos and percussion.
Unsuk Chin, Prague Offspring Composer-in-Residence
“My music is a reflection of my dreams,” says Unsuk Chin, the Prague Offspring 2026 Composer-in-Residence. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Chin has forged a distinctive style shaped by the meeting of Eastern and Western cultural traditions. Her works have earned her the highest international honours a living composer can receive: in 2004 she was awarded the Grawemeyer Award – often referred to as the Nobel Prize of music – followed by the Arnold Schoenberg Prize and, in 2024, the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. Her compositions have been performed and commissioned by the world’s leading orchestras and opera houses, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, and the Bavarian State Opera. Among her most ardent champions is conductor Kent Nagano, though her works are also frequently performed by other distinguished conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Robertson and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
Four of Unsuk Chin’s works will be heard at Prague Offspring: Akrostichon–Wortspiel (1993) for soprano and orchestra, featuring Sarah Aristidou; Double Concerto for piano, percussion and ensemble (2003) with pianist Orlando Bass and Ensemble Modern percussionists Rainer Römer and David Haller; and Gougalōn (2009), inspired by the composer’s first journey to China. During a meeting with the composer on 29 May, audiences will also hear the scene Advice from a Caterpillar for solo bass clarinet from her opera Alice in Wonderland, which was named “World Premiere of the Year 2007” by Die Opernwelt magazine. Chin’s works will be performed by Ensemble Modern, returning for its second year as Prague Offspring’s resident ensemble, under the direction of conductor Ilan Volkov.
The Prague Offspring 2026 series, held on 29 and 30 May at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, will also feature works by Ondřej Adámek, Michal Nejtek, Iannis Xenakis, Michaela Antalová, Tobiáš Horváth, Patrik Kako and Jiří Kadeřábek – five of them world premieres.
World Premieres at Prague Spring 2026
Prague Spring has long remained committed to supporting the creation of new music, regularly commissioning works from Czech and Slovak composers. For its 81st edition, eleven new compositions are being written by the following artists:
Kryštof Mařatka (Prague Spring Competition, compulsory piece for piano)
Petr Popelka (Prague Spring Competition, compulsory piece for flute)
Jan Dušek (Smetana Trio, premiere on 16 May)
Nikol Bóková (Music School Salon, premiere on 17 May)
Pavel Samiec (Music School Salon, premiere on 17 May)
Michal Nejtek (Prague Offspring, premiere on 29 May)
Michaela Antalová (Prague Offspring, premiere on 30 May)
Tobiáš Horváth (Prague Offspring, premiere on 30 May)
Patrik Kako (Prague Offspring, premiere on 30 May)
Jiří Kadeřábek (Prague Offspring, premiere on 30 May)
Marko Ivanović (SpringTEEN, premiere on 30 May)
Prague Spring Debut
The thirteenth Prague Spring Debut will be entrusted to thirty-year-old conductor Ondřej Soukup, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen and the Royal College of Music in London. His programme, featuring works by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Antonín Dvořák and Alberto Ginastera, is united by the theme of the American continent and the rhythmic vitality of dance.
Established in 2014 on the initiative of Jiří Bělohlávek, the Prague Spring Debut is dedicated to young conductors. The 2026 edition will take place at the Rudolfinum on 18 May, featuring the Prague Philharmonia and leading Slovak soprano Simona Šaturová.
77th Prague Spring International Music Competition
The 77th edition of the Prague Spring International Music Competition will take place from 6 to 14 May 2026 in the disciplines of flute and piano. The final rounds in Rudolfinum’s Dvořák Hall will once again form an integral part of the main festival programme: the flute final on 13 May, accompanied by the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Kaspar Zehnder, and the piano final on 14 May with the Prague Symphony Orchestra conducted by Petr Altrichter.
As tradition dictates, the second and final rounds will be live-streamed on the Prague Spring YouTube channel, which continues to attract a large following – recordings from the 2025 competition have already been viewed by around 40,000 users. In cooperation with the ČEZ Foundation, the successful mentoring project introduced in 2025 will also continue, offering participants guidance from leading global experts in PR and music industry communication.
The international juries will be chaired by French flautist Philippe Bernold and British pianist Daniel Browell. Joining the flute jury are Emily Beynon (UK), Christina Fassbender (Germany), Barthold Kuijken (Belgium), Václav Kunt (Czech Republic), Jan Ostrý (Czech Republic) and Karl-Heinz Schütz (Austria). The piano jury, in addition to Daniel Browell, will include Joonas Ahonen (Finland), Dina Yoffe (Latvia/Germany), Leonel Morales (Spain), Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń (Poland), and the Prague Spring Competition winners from 1998 and 2004, Martin Kasík and Ivo Kahánek (Czech Republic). The application deadline is 1 December 2025. Competition details and entry requirements are available at festival.cz/competition.
Prague Spring for teenagers
Under the title Fantastic Worlds of Music, the third edition of SpringTEEN will take place on 30 May from 14.00 at the St Agnes’ Convent, designed especially for teenage audiences and families with children. This year’s programme of classical, film, jazz and electronic music concerts, along with creative workshops for both children and adults, will venture beyond sound into the realms of visual art, movement and musical theatre. The project’s dramaturgy is once again prepared by Klára Boudalová, who has invited Floex Ensemble with the robot Josef, actor and singer Jan Cina, the SpringTEEN Band, and composer Marko Ivanović, commissioned to write a new work in which workshop participants and the audience of the Grand Finale will once again take part. A new feature of SpringTEEN 2026 will be cooperation with the AutTalk Foundation. Some workshops will thus be open to all children, including those with autism spectrum disorders, together with their parents. The project’s partner will be ABB Czech Republic for the third consecutive year.
Partners and Patrons
“The Prague Spring Festival is a model example of multi-source funding. We are deeply grateful for the support of all our patrons and partners, both public and private, who view culture as an essential part of society. Thanks to their trust, Prague Spring can continue to develop its artistic vision and remain an open, independent platform for classical music. The approaching 80th anniversary of the festival’s founding represents a wonderful opportunity for art patrons and Czech and international companies alike to join or strengthen their collaboration with Prague Spring,” says Tereza Dubsky, responsible for fundraising and strategic partnerships at the festival.
The 81st edition of Prague Spring will once again be held under the auspices of the President of the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel, continuing the unbroken tradition of presidential patronage since 1946. Additional patrons include the Minister of Culture of the Czech Republic, Martin Baxa, and the Mayor of Prague, Bohuslav Svoboda.
The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, founder of the Prague Spring as a legal entity, remains the festival’s principal public supporter. The City of Prague will continue its vital backing in 2026, providing a contribution of CZK 15 million.
The General Partner of Prague Spring 2026 is ČEZ Group, which has also taken on partnership of the Opening Concert and Prague Spring Open Air on 12 May. Through the ČEZ Foundation, financial support for the Prague Spring International Music Competition has been significantly strengthened. “We are one of the largest Czech companies, and every day we help ensure the smooth running of our entire country. It is therefore natural for us to care for the cultural heritage of our society and to pass it on to future generations in world-class quality. This year, for the eighty-first time, we look forward to an experience that is both traditional and unique – a musical celebration brought to life by artists of international renown. I am delighted that we have been contributing to the success of the Prague Spring for the third consecutive year,” says Daniel Beneš, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of ČEZ.
Prague Spring also greatly values the long-standing trust placed in it by innogy Česká republika a. s., which has supported the festival for thirty-two consecutive years as festival partner.
The 2026 concert and project partners include Allianz pojišťovna, a.s., FNC Technology, and ABB Czech Republic. The official car of Prague Spring 2026 will be Mercedes-Benz Czech Republic.
Special thanks go to the festival’s patrons’ club, Friends of Prague Spring, whose membership has once again reached a record number in 2026. “We feel immense gratitude and kinship with our donors – not only do they support the festival financially, but they also shape its spirit and its energy. Together we form one great, harmonious family,” says Anežka Kochová, who looks after the festival’s patrons.
The general media partner of Prague Spring 2026 is Czech Television, with Czech Radio as the main media partner. The festival’s print and online media partner remains Economia, a.s., publisher of Hospodářské noviny and operator of the websites hn.cz and aktualne.cz. In the field of specialised media, Prague Spring continues its partnership with the online platforms KlasikaPlus.cz, Operaplus.cz and polyharmonie.cz. Following successful cooperation in 2025, the festival also continues its media partnership with the Czech News Agency (CTK).
Ticket Sales
Ticket sales for Prague Spring 2026 will open on Wednesday 5 November 2025 at 11.00. Tickets will be available online at festival.cz. Detailed information about each concert can be found in the Programme section at festival.cz.
For enquiries regarding ticket orders, payments, invoices or group bookings, customers can contact ENIGOO at +420 461 049 232.
Festival programme information is available via the Prague Spring information line at +420 257 310 414.
