The 29th edition of the Festival features a host of classical music legends returning to the Swiss Alps alongside future talent.

Approaching its 30th anniversary in 2023 and affirming its position in the topflight of the world’s classical music festivals, the Verbier Festival announces its mainstage programme for 2022. As ever, in a distinctive and exhilarating spirit of community and exchange, the Festival brings together established and emerging musicians of the highest calibre—the major names of today and the major names of the future.

Running from July 15 to 31 2022, the Festival offers more than 60 Mainstage events, ranging from large-scale orchestral concerts and opera in concert form to solo recitals, chamber concerts— assembling new teams of renowned soloists and chamber specialists in its ‘Rencontres Inédites’ series—and even a dramatised reading. The events will take place in the Festival’s regular venues, the 1,700-seat Salle des Combins the more intimate Église de Verbier and the Hameau Cultural Centre.

Valery Gergiev, Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra, opens the Festival with the Verbier Festival Orchestra and conducts two further concerts with soloists Mikhail Pletnev, who performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and Denis Matsuev in a performance of Rodion Shchedrin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, marking the composer’s 90th birthday.

Moreover, the Music Director of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, Gábor Takács-Nagy, will conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the orchestra. This will be the final instalment of the cycle, which will be released in collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon in conjunction with the Festival’s 30th edition. This significant ‘time capsule’ of recordings allows audiences to join in celebrating such powerful musical masterpieces.

Three operas will be performed in concert, with Takács-Nagy leading the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra for Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Gianandrea Noseda also conducts a concert performance of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera. Singers from the Verbier Festival Academy Atelier Lyrique give a concert performance of Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel with the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra, conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky. 

The Verbier Festival’s plans for its 2022 Academy, one of the musical world’s most admired training initiatives for exceptional rising talent, and  UNLTD, its wide-reaching complimentary event programme, will be announced in Spring 2022.

This 29th edition of the Verbier Festival is made possible with the support of many philanthropic, corporate and public funders, notably Madame Aline Foriel-Destezet, The Friends of the Verbier Festival, the Festival’s major donors, including its Chairman’s Circle, the Commune de Val de Bagnes, Loterie Romande, Canton du Valais, and its loyal Principal Sponsors Bank Julius Baer, Neva Foundation and SICPA.

More information on the variety of programmes on show at the 2022 Verbier Festival can be found here.

WildKat is leading on the Verbier Festival PR and Marketing as Head of Communications, with the WildKat team working across all of the Festival’s digital marketing, social media, German PR and press coordination.