The Prague Spring 2027 program has been announced. The 82nd edition will be dedicated to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven
The Prague Spring International Music Festival has announced the programme for its 82nd edition. From 12 May to 2 June 2027, it will present 85 artists, ensembles and orchestras from 23 countries and offer more than seventy events, including 37 concerts, the premiere of the opera Salome at the National Theatre, 22 workshops and masterclasses, and more than a dozen accompanying events. The festival will welcome international stars such as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Igor Levit, Joshua Bell, John Adams, Kurt Elling, Magdalena Kožená and countertenor and breakdancer Jakub Józef Orliński. For the first time in the history of Prague Spring, the opening concert on 12 May will be performed by an orchestra from outside Europe. Other innovations include a new concert Prague Spring Jazz Series, and a stronger festival presence in public spaces. The festival will be preceded by the 78th Prague Spring International Music Competition, held from 6 to 14 May, with harpsichord and clarinet as the disciplines for 2027. The harpsichord competition will commemorate the centenary of the birth of Zuzana Růžičková. Ticket sales begin on Wednesday, 4 November, at 11.00 at festival.cz/en/programme.
#MeetBeethovenLive
The 2027 festival programme will pay particular tribute to the 200th anniversary of the death of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). “The centrepiece will be the aforementioned complete cycle of Beethoven’s nine symphonies performed by the Bamberg Symphony, but his music will also feature prominently in the programmes of Prague Spring’s 2027 Artist-in-Residence, pianist Igor Levit. American violinist Joshua Bell will return to the festival after twenty-four years to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, while the festival will also conclude with Beethoven’s music: the monumental Missa solemnis, performed by the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK, the Slovak Philharmonic Choir, four international soloists and conductor Tomáš Netopil,” says the festival’s Artistic Director, Josef Třeštík. “We will also dedicate our SpringTEEN project for young audiences to Beethoven, and on 31 May, his music will quite literally ‘wander’ among the exhibits in the Museum of Transportation, a hall of the National Technical Museum, during a ecital by bassoonist Michaela Špačková,” concludes Josef Třeštík.
Beethoven pass
For ticket holders attending concerts featuring Beethoven’s music, the festival has also introduced the Prague Spring Beethoven Pass. Under the banner 9 Symphonies – 9 Benefits, it offers concertgoers opportunities to venture beyond the concert hall and discover experiences highlighting the composer’s connections with the Czech lands. Visitors can, for example, spend four nights in Beethoven’s room at the Teplice Spa, where the composer wrote the famous letter to his “Immortal Beloved”; view the manuscripts of his Third, Fourth and Fifth Symphonies in the art collections of the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle; or sample wines from the cellars in Roudnice, which Ludwig van Beethoven himself probably enjoyed during his visits to Bohemia. International visitors can take advantage of special accommodation offers at Prague Spring’s partner hotels during the festival. Another intriguing feature of the festival’s programming is the texts accompanying Beethoven’s works on the festival website, in which Ludwig van Beethoven himself narrates their stories. The festival’s ambition to bring Beethoven’s personality vividly to life through its projects dedicated to the composer in 2027 is encapsulated in the hashtag #MeetBeethovenLive.
World-Class Orchestras
For the first time since its foundation in 1946, Prague Spring will be opened by an orchestra from outside Europe. Smetana’s My Country will be performed by the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO), conducted by its Music Director, Jaap van Zweden. The concert will once again be broadcast live at Prague Spring Open Air, which will take place in Rieger Gardens on 12 May with the support of the ČEZ Group. Prague Spring will also welcome other world-class orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, which, together with Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson and under the baton of John Adams, will give the Czech premiere of Adams’s Third Piano Concerto, After the Fall.
The festival return of legendary violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will be marked by the Czech premiere of Arch of Light, a triple concerto for violin, viola, cello and orchestra by Iranian composer Golfam Khayam, inspired by the Persian legend of Arash the Archer. Anne-Sophie Mutter will perform the work alongside American-Iranian violist Muriel Razavi and Austrian-Iranian cellist Kian Soltani, accompanied by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France will arrive with its Principal Guest Conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Japanese pianist Mao Fujita. American violinist Joshua Bell will return to the festival after twenty-four years, appearing in the dual role of soloist and concertmaster of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble comprising members of some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Czech orchestras appearing at the festival will include the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony Orchestra FOK and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Beethoven Cycle
The Bamberg Symphony, recently named Orchestra of the Year by Gramophone magazine, will become the first ensemble in the history of Prague Spring to hold the title of Orchestra-in-Residence. An intensive engagement with Beethoven’s music has been a constant throughout the orchestra’s eighty-year history, a tradition continued by its current Chief Conductor, Jakub Hrůša. With performances of the complete Beethoven symphony cycle in Bamberg, Prague, Vienna, Düsseldorf and Cologne, he will bring his tenth season at the helm of this outstanding orchestra to a close. “Each of Beethoven’s nine symphonies opens up a new musical world and expands the possibilities of the symphonic form. This has also become the central idea behind our programme: to create an audible arc tracing Beethoven’s lifelong artistic journey,” says Jakub Hrůša. “For musicians and audiences alike, discovering the richness, contrasts and originality of each symphony together will be an extraordinary experience.”
Artist-in-Residence Igor Levit
Since his success at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2005, pianist Igor Levit has established himself as one of the most sought-after artists of his generation. His distinctive artistic approach is characterised by a search for new ways of forging meaningful connections between music of the past and the immediacy of the present. An artist who regularly performs in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, he demonstrates this not only through projects that push the boundaries of what seems possible, such as his sixteen-hour live online performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations, but also through his recordings, which have earned him numerous prestigious accolades, including Opus Klassik, Gramophone’s Artist of the Year, Musical America’s Recording Artist of the Year and BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year.
On his website, he describes himself as “Citizen. European. Pianist”. He is not afraid to express his views on social and political issues: he organises concerts for refugees, campaigns for environmental protection and speaks out against antisemitism and xenophobia. Igor Levit will perform four different programmes in Prague between 20 and 22 May. Ludwig van Beethoven will be the central composer of his residency, but Levit will also perform Palais de Mari, a unique composition by American composer Morton Feldman, inspired by the distinctive colours of Persian carpets and the imperfect symmetries of the ruins of an ancient Babylonian palace at Mari.
New! Prague Spring Jazz Series
The festival will introduce a new Prague Spring Jazz Series, curated in 2027 by American jazz icon and seventeen-time Grammy nominee, pianist Fred Hersch. Joining him in Prague will be singer Kurt Elling, a two-time Grammy winner who topped the critics’ and readers’ polls in DownBeat magazine for two decades and received fifteen Jazz Journalists Association awards in the “Male Singer of the Year” category, and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, who has quite literally rewritten the DNA of modern jazz.
Contemporary Music at Prague Offspring
Contemporary music will take centre stage during the Prague Offspring weekend, whose star this year will be composer and conductor Enno Poppe. The fascinating sound world of one of the most distinctive figures on today’s European music scene combines highly complex structures with irony, humour and an almost primal vulgarity. Enno Poppe will bring Czech premieres of his works Fell (Skin), Brot (Bread) and the fifty-minute composition Körper (Body), in which Ensemble Modern transforms into a jazz big band, to the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art.
Journeys into the Past
The series devoted to music of the 17th and 18th centuries promises to be exceptionally inspiring, taking audiences to Italy and to the famous Café Zimmermann in early 18th-century Leipzig. The festival will welcome numerous international stars of early music, including sopranos Jiayu Jin and Emmanuelle de Negri, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and, making his festival debut, countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński. They will be accompanied by leading ensembles La Cetra Barockorchester Basel from Switzerland, Il Pomo d’Oro from Italy and Collegium Marianum from the Czech Republic.
Tickets for Prague Spring 2027 concerts will go on sale on Wednesday, 4 November 2026 at 11.00. Tickets will be available to purchase online at festival.cz/en/programme. For enquiries concerning order status, payments, invoicing or group bookings, customers can contact ENIGOO on +420 461 049 232. For information about the festival programme, please contact Prague Spring on +420 257 310 414.
