VISION AND TRADITION
With joy and a touch of pride, we look back on the ninth year of Swiss Alps Classics. Over the years, our festival has firmly established itself as a highlight in the calendar of international music lovers.
Swiss Alps Classics stands for extraordinary concert venues in the mystical region surrounding the St. Gotthard as much as for the close and personal encounters with world-class artists. In recent years, we’ve had the honour of welcoming exceptional musicians – including star pianists such as Lang Lang, Igor Levit, and Katia & Marielle Labèque; renowned opera voices like Olga Peretyatko, Marisol Montalvo, and Herbert Lippert; as well as violin virtuosos such as Maxim Brilinsky, Ziyu He, Benjamin Schmid, and Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, who also took to the podium as conductor in 2019, 2021 and 2024.
The internationally celebrated composer and clarinetist Jörg Widmann, along with ensembles such as the Philharmonia Schrammeln Wien, Triology, the Janoska Ensemble, and members of the Vienna Philharmonic, contributed to a festival atmosphere that is truly one of a kind. Other notable guests included Isabel Karajan, Swiss-born flutist and former managing director of the Vienna Philharmonic Dieter Flury, and acclaimed “family duos” such as Elena Bashkirova-Barenboim & Michael Barenboim, and Hans & Martin Haselböck – all of whom became part of this unique musical journey.
Our past venues have included the Nätschen Mittelstation, the Crystal Hall at Sasso San Gottardo, and the Benedictine Monastery of Disentis. In 2022, we performed for the first time at the Bürgenstock Resort Lake Lucerne, offering a spectacular view over Lake Lucerne. At the Park Hotel Vitznau, we continued our long-standing collaboration with the POK Pühringer Private Foundation and the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, which began in 2018. Additional concert venues included The Chedi Andermatt and the Andermatt Concert Hall.
The 2023 festival brought two major premieres: The Lucerne Symphony Orchestra performed for the first time in the Andermatt Concert Hall under the baton of Michael Sanderling, with Sebastian Bohren as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. We also inaugurated a new venue – the Chamber Music Hall of Kultur Kulinarik Vitznau, which opened in February 2023. This marked both a continuation of our trusted partnerships with the POK Pühringer Private Foundation and the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, and a further step in making the cultural and touristic uniqueness of the region visible far beyond Central Switzerland.
In 2024, we had the pleasure of welcoming Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing, accompanied by the String Ensemble of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and pianist Håvard Gimse, in the Andermatt Concert Hall. Another highlight was the return of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, this time conducted by Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, with Anastasia Kobekina as cello soloist.
The 9th Swiss Alps Classics took place from July 4 to 6, 2025, and featured a truly world-class highlight: On July 6, the internationally acclaimed Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala performed in the Andermatt Concert Hall, conducted by Julian Rachlin, who also appeared as violin soloist. On July 5, we proudly presented two rising stars of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation: Aidan Siqi Zhao and Deva Mira Sperandio, who gave a captivating piano recital – also in the Andermatt Concert Hall. These concerts were presented in collaboration with Andermatt Music.