DW Festival Concerts

Deutsche Welle Festival Concerts — 26 two-hour programs — Your ticket to the German festival season!

Live performances from Germany, the superpower of music the stars cannot afford to ignore. Germany's public broadcasters record these events for their listeners, and we share highlights of the season with you.

There's the backbone of Deutsche Welle's listings; the Beethoven Festival in the broadcaster's home city of Bonn. This block of concerts opens with that festival's complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies as performed by the Orchestre National de France and conductor Kurt Masur.

From there we move on to a sneak preview of the music of the future, with the latest crop of prize winners at one of the world's most prestigious music competitions. Then there are four chamber music festivals: the experimental and imaginative Summer Music Days in Hitzacker, the Moritzburg Festival just outside of Dresden, up north to Norway and to Leif Ove Andsnes' Risør Festival, before we take you back home to Bonn and Deutsche Welle's own local Concerto Discreto series. Not to forget the spectacular Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, which focused this year on Russian music and musicians. All in all, it's far more than the bread-and-butter repertory: much nutrition for the soul and the spirit in an abundance of flavors.

The recordings are consistently of high "Made in Germany" standards, and bringing it all together is host and producer Rick Fulker. Having observed German music life closely for some time, he's able to select from the full range of concerts on the calendar.

Broadcast Schedule >