On Monday, June 1, the Prague Spring presents listeners with a difficult choice: the National Technical Museum (NTM) will host a site-specific project presenting the music of two leading Italian composers – Salvatore Sciarrino and Luigi Nono. From the latter’s oeuvre, violinist Hana Kotková, together with Italian musicologist and one of the foremost experts on Nono’s work, Veniero Rizzardi, will perform the piece La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura for violin and eight sound tracks, which the artists have impressively set within the space of the National Technic Museum’s Transport Hall. Veniero Rizzardi was present at an authentic performance of this piece by Nono – inspired by an inscription on the wall of a monastery in Toledo – featuring violinist Gidon Kremer, and thus knows this work, which arises largely from the mutual interaction of the artists directly within a given space and moment, down to the last detail.

At the same time, the Smetana Hall at the Municipal House will host three major Prague Spring debuts. Making their festival debut will be the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Lahav Shani, and Austrian piano prodigy Lukas Sternath, winner of eight prizes – including first prize – at the 2022 ARD Munich Competition and the prestigious title of ECHO Rising Star 2024–2025. The program for the June 1 concert features Robert Schumann’s famous piano concerto, into which the composer wove the name of his great love, Clara Schumann, in the poetic form “CHiArA.” Also on the program are Johannes Brahms’s Second Symphony and the magnificent score Cyrano de Bergerac by the Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar, active at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, inspired by Edmond Rostand’s play of the same name.

On Tuesday, June 2, the absolutely exceptional Prague Spring residency of Canadian soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan will come to a close, as she presents her second festival programme with the Czech Philharmonic. This time, she will appear in works by Charles Ives, Joseph Haydn, and Arnold Schoenberg purely as a conductor. She will combine her vocal artistry with conducting only in the final suite from George Gershwin’s musical Girl Crazy, in which the musicians of the Czech Philharmonic are also expected to sing.

Following the great success of their program with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Dutch piano duo Lucas and Arthur Jussen will return to the stage of the Dvořák Hall at the Rudolfinum on Wednesday, June 3. This time, however, they will present a completely different musical world. They have invited percussionists Alexei Gerassimez and Emil Kuyumcuyan to join them, with whom they will follow in the footsteps of 20th- and 21st-century composers. In an arrangement for two pianos and percussion, the program will feature a suite from Leonard Bernstein’s musical West Side Story, John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine, and Béla Bartók’s famous Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. From the works of George Gershwin, listeners can look forward to Rhapsody in Blue arranged for two pianos, and a piece for percussion alone will also be included. The Czech premiere of Beyond Stickability for two percussionists by Alexei Gerassimez will be performed. A new feature of the festival will be a public dress rehearsal for elementary school children from across the Czech Republic, in collaboration with the “Helping Schools Succeed” program, which is part of the activities of The Kellner Family Foundation.

The Prague Spring 2026 festival will culminate on Thursday, June 4, with a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Smetana Hall of the Municipal House, featuring a unique collaboration between the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, one of Europe’s oldest choirs, the Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, and a quartet of world-class soloists: Eleonora Buratto (soprano), Elīna Garanča (mezzo-soprano), Benjamin Bernheim (tenor), and Riccardo Zanellato (bass). The performance will be conducted by one of the most distinguished bearers of the Italian musical tradition – conductor Daniele Gatti. As is tradition, the partner of the closing concert is innogy Česká republika, which is also a partner of the Prague Spring Festival.

The last tickets for the festival concerts are available online at this website and at the festival box offices at the Rudolfinum and the Municipal House.

French repertoire will also feature prominently on 26 May, when Prague Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence Barbara Hannigan will appear in the dual role of singer and conductor in her debut with the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum, presenting her own interpretation of Francis Poulenc’s operatic monodrama The Human Voice. The project, enhanced by live video projections, will receive its Czech premiere. The “French triptych” will conclude on 27 May with a work on the border between oratorio and opera – Jules Massenet’s Marie-Magdeleine. Conducted by Robert Jindra, who will lead the Chorus and Orchestra of the National Theatre on the stage of the National Theatre, the title roles will be performed by soprano Aleksandra Kurzak (Mary Magdalene), tenor Kang Wang (Jesus), mezzo-soprano Arnheiður Eiríksdóttir (Martha) and bass František Zahradníček (Judas). The project has been created in cooperation with the National Theatre. This remarkable series of large-scale vocal-instrumental works will culminate on 28 May with a performance of Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Creation. It was last heard at the festival in 1982 under Austrian conductor Leopold Hager. This time, the performance will be conducted by Václav Luks leading the Orchestra and Choir of the Age of Enlightenment.

Among the outstanding vocal-instrumental events of the coming week we may also include one of the breakthrough works of the late 20th century by Prague Offspring 2026 Composer-in-Residence Unsuk Chin, Akrostichon-Wortspiel. The composition, which opened the doors of the world’s leading concert halls to Unsuk Chin, will be performed on the opening evening of Prague Offspring on 29 May by the Ensemble Modern and soprano Sarah Aristidou. During her festival residency, audiences can also look forward to Unsuk Chin’s Double Concerto for piano, percussion and ensemble (29 May) and Gougalōn (30 May), inspired by Korean street theatre. Prague Offspring will also present five world premieres commissioned by the Prague Spring International Music Festival: Die Intercedences by Michal Nejtek (29 May), based on fragments of texts by Franz Kafka, COVID-19 (Fury and Silence) by Jiří Kadeřábek, Unravel by Michaela Antalová, 423 by Tobiáš Horváth and funktionslust : R by Patrik Kako (30 May). Alongside the concerts, audiences will also be able to draw inspiration over the two days, 29 and 30 May, at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art through workshops, open discussions and a masterclass with members of the Ensemble Modern. A public masterclass will also be led by Barbara Hannigan on 31 May in the Suk Hall of the Rudolfinum.

On Saturday 30 May, from 14.00 to 20.00, the third edition of the popular SpringTEEN project for the youngest audiences will take place in the grounds of the Convent of St Agnes. Children and teenagers can once again look forward to concerts and workshops inspired this year by the worlds of visualisation, movement and musical theatre. This year’s stars of SpringTEEN will include actor and singer Jan Cina, the Floex Ensemble with the robot Josef, and the traditional SpringTEEN Band, now expanded by SpringTEEN Band Junior. The afternoon will culminate at 18.30 in the Grand Finale, featuring the world premiere of The Spring by composer and conductor Marko Ivanović, traditionally involving both children and the SpringTEEN audience. Thanks to the support of ABB Česká republika, SpringTEEN will once again connect the worlds of technology and art, while a new feature this year will be a workshop and Chill-Out Zone in cooperation with the AutTalk Foundation, which supports children with autism spectrum disorder. The SpringTEEN programme has once again been curated by Klára Boudalová.

The third festival week will culminate in a Sunday full of music. On 31 May at the Rudolfinum, a chamber concert of works by Antonín Dvořák performed by violinist Jiří Vodička and pianist David Mareček will begin at 17.00. In the evening, two extraordinary works of the 19th and 20th centuries will be performed at the Municipal House by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 1, written for the winner of the 1952 Prague Spring Competition, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6. The solo part in the Shostakovich concerto will this time be performed by the winner of the 2025 Prague Spring Competition, Japanese cellist Yuya Mizuno. The Grammy Award-winning orchestra will be conducted by another outstanding Czech conductor, Tomáš Hanus. On Sunday 31 May, the traditional memorial tribute to Josef Suk will also take place with a concert in Křečovice.

The week full of music will open with the cinema premiere of the documentary Prague Spring – A Window onto the World by director and screenwriter Martin Suchánek, created to mark the 80^th anniversary of the Prague Spring Festival. The premiere will take place in the presence of the filmmakers on Monday 25 May at Cinema 35 at the French Institute in Prague. The documentary,  co-produced by the Prague Spring, Czech Television and innogy Česká republika, is already available on Czech Television’s iVysílání platform.

Tickets for individual festival events are available online at festival.cz and at the festival box offices in the Rudolfinum and the Municipal House.

“If one can speak of pop music in Bruckner, then the Sixth is at times almost a kind of Brucknerian ‘pop’ – of course in the best sense,” says Tomáš Hanus about the second work on the programme. “Bruckner can move one to tears; there is something profoundly truthful and guileless in his music, with no sense of emotional calculation or striving for effect.” The evening opens with Shostakovich’s first cello concerto, a work built around the composer’s D-S-C-H motif, which in its finale ironically quotes Stalin’s favourite song, Suliko, and today ranks among Shostakovich’s most popular works. Yuya Mizuno performs it on a rare cello by Pietro Giacomo Rogeri from 1730.

Join us for an exceptional concert featuring a superbly curated programme on 31 May in the Smetana Hall of the Municipal House ⤵️

Dear ticket holders for the Prague Spring concert on 1 June at 8 pm at Municipal House (Argerich & Shani & Rotterdam Philharmonic): We regret to announce that, for personal reasons, Mrs Martha Argerich has cancelled all her European concerts during this period and will not be appearing at the Prague Spring.

👉 Nevertheless, similar situations have often given rise to huge sensations.

On this day, accompanied by Lahav Shani conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the greatest musical talents on the current classical music scene will start to write his first Prague Spring chapter: Austrian pianist Lukas Sternath. Over the last three years, the twenty-five-year-old winner of the International ARD Music Competition in Munich and holder of the title ECHO Rising Star 2024 has given his debuts at the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms, the Elbphilharmonie, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The Vienna Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša conducting the Bamberg Symphony have also shown great faith in him in their given seasons.

👉 The concert programme remains unchanged, thus it includes the originally scheduled Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor by Robert Schumann.

We are well aware that you were looking forward to hearing Martha Argerich. Yet life presents us with situations we can neither change nor influence. In any case, we now venture to put forward Lukas Sternath’s Czech debut as one of the most surprising and most fascinating events of this year’s festival. This amiable

Viennese artist, whose success is still something of a mystery to him, could rank alongside the likes of superb pianists Friedrich Gulda, Sviatoslav Richter or Daniil Trifonov, who gave their Czech debuts at the Prague Spring.

👉 We trust you will be there with us.

For further information regarding tickets for the concert at Municipal House on 1 June, please contact us via email at info@enigoo.cz or phone +420 461 049 232.

“Being a pianist has taught me that we can decide every day what we want to practise, and how to approach life. We have more in our hands than we realise,” states Lukas Sternath.

From 3 to 9 November 2026, the Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival, presented under the auspices of Prague Spring, will hold its 14th edition at the Rudolfinum, offering five concerts this year. The festival will welcome to Prague for the first time the piano duo Evgeny Kissin and Sir András Schiff, who will appear together on stage. The winner of the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, Lukas Sternath, will make his festival debut. The Czech performing tradition will be represented by Marek Kozák, recipient of the Jiří Bělohlávek Prize 2025, while the legendary Grigory Sokolov and the winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Anna Vinnitskaya, will return to the festival after four years.

“Romantic music of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will predominate, including works by Czech masters. The opening concert, bringing together Evgeny Kissin and Sir András Schiff on the same stage, is, in my view, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Personally, I am also very pleased that Grigory Sokolov will be returning, as he comes to the Czech Republic more or less exclusively for the Firkušný Festival,” says the festival’s Artistic Director Josef Třeštík. As for the performers, the festival once again combines established tradition with the energy of young talents. One of the most anticipated events will be the debut of Lukas Sternath, winner of the ARD Competition Munich 2022 and recipient of the ECHO Klassik Award 2024, as well as the return of the outstanding pianist Anna Vinnitskaya, whose artistic profile includes appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Czech performing tradition will be represented by Marek Kozák, last year’s laureate of the Bach Competition in Leipzig and recipient of the Jiří Bělohlávek Prize 2025 (his festival debut in 2020 was streamed online). The 14th edition of the Firkušný Festival will conclude in grand style with one of the most original pianists on the planet, Grigory Sokolov, whose programme – as always – remains a closely guarded secret.

Ticket sales for all festival concerts will begin online at firkusny.cz/en/ on Thursday, 19 March at 11 a.m. Until 4 June, a 20% Early Bird discount will be available for individual tickets.

A Walk Through a Minefield with Barbara Hannigan and Bertrand Chamayou

“In John Zorn’s Jumalattaret, I can show everything I’ve got as a singer. It is as if I were turning myself inside out and saying: ‘Here I am!’” says Prague Spring 2026 Artist-in-Residence Barbara Hannigan about one of the most eagerly anticipated works of this year’s festival. On Wednesday 20 May, she will perform this extraordinary piece, whose every bar the New York Times once described as “a minefield of intonation and technique”, together with the French pianist Bertrand Chamayou in its Czech premiere at Dvořák Hall in Prague’s Rudolfinum. Alongside Zorn’s work, music by Olivier Messiaen and Alexander Scriabin will also be heard. 

In this song cycle, in which the American multi-instrumentalist, composer and jazz musician John Zorn set to music fragments from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, the singer gradually assumes the roles of four pagan Finnish goddesses: Akka, Louhi, Tellervo and Ilmatar. Hannigan astonishes here with the vast range of her voice, from soaring high notes to throat singing. She whispers, hums and laughs; at moments her voice vibrates like birdsong, while her partner Bertrand Chamayou displays his mastery in the unplayable passages of the piano part. Jumalattaret is simply a riveting work, and hearing it live will be one of the highlights of Prague Spring 2026. You will experience everything a listener could wish for: virtuosity, spiritual depth and a generous measure of mystery. Join us on 20 May at the Rudolfinum for a journey into the world of Finnish myth.

Would you like to take a look inside the unsingable score of Jumalattaret and learn more about how the work came into being? In a short video, Barbara Hannigan herself will guide you through it:

And in the second video, you can hear some interesting facts about working with Bertrand Chamayou:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.