Kissinger Sommer

The Kissinger Sommer is a classical music festival held every year in the summer in the city of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, Southern Germany. The festival was founded in 1986. Every summer around 50 concerts are attracting about 30 000 visitors. The occurring interpreters are a mixture of well-known international stars like Cecilia Bartoli, Arcadi Volodos, Fazil Say or Grigory Sokolov, and newcomers, who often later have made a great career too, like Lang Lang or David Garrett. Every year the "Luitpoldpreis" (Luitpold Prize) is awarded to a young interpreter of the festival. The prize is named after Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, who built the great Bad Kissingen concert hall "Regentenbau", where many of the concerts of the festival take place. Among the winners there are artists like Alisa Weilerstein (2000), Baiba Skride (2003), Tine Thing Helseth (2007) and Igor Levit (2009).

From the beginning the festival is also a place for contemporary composers like Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, Aribert Reimann or Wolfgang Rihm. Since 2006 composers present themselves and their music in the workshop "Bad Kissinger Liederwerkstatt".

The festival is connected to the "Kissinger Klavierolymp", a competition of young pianists in autumn in Bad Kissingen. The prize for the winners is a performance at the "Kissinger Sommer".

Director of the "Kissinger Sommer" from 1986 until 2016 was Kari Kahl-Wolfsjäger. Her successor, beginning in 2017, is Tilman Schlömp, formerly artistic director at the festival Beethovenfest in Bonn.

The great Bad Kissingen concert hall "Regentenbau", one of the sites of the "Kissinger Sommer"

External links

• Homepage "Kissinger Sommer"