Music in Leipzig and its surrounding region

Leipzig, where music sets the tone.

You can feel the fascinating power of music everywhere in Leipzig – in the streets and squares, in churches, concert halls and the many authentic locations where famous musicians worked and lived. And there is a long tradition: In past centuries, more than 500 composers lived here, including great names from music history: Johann Sebastian Bach, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Clara und Robert Schumann as well as Richard Wagner, Edvard Grieg, Albert Lortzing, Gustav Mahler and Hanns Eisler.

The rich musical heritage also includes the Gewandhausorchester and the world-famous St. Thomas Boys Choir. And of course, let's not forget: Oper Leipzig, which has always been committed to Wagner's legacy and numbers amongst the oldest civic music theatre stages in Europe.

But Leipzig does not only have a great musical history. Here the tradition is still alive. The city attracts classical music fans with high-class festivals and an impressive musical calendar.

Mendelssohn Festival: 29 October – 4 November 2024
Gewandhaus - Shostakovich Festival: 15 May - 1 June 2025
Leipzig Bachfest: 12 – 22 June 2025
Opera festival "Lortzing": 24 April - 3 May 2026

Follow in the musical footsteps of the world's greatest composers and discover the City of Music :Leipzig.

Flyer "City of music :Leipzig"

City of Music :Leipzig - Travel Offers

”

”Oh, how I envy Leipzig for its music.“

– Clara Schumann

City of Music :Leipzig

Leipzig Opera Festival Gewandhaus Festival Leipzig Bachfest Mendelssohn Festival

Gewandhaus Festival Leipzig

Shostakovich Festival 2025

15 May - 1 June 2025

In May 2025, the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig will be dedicated to Dimitri Shostakovich and will honour him on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his death with one of the most comprehensive examinations of his works. The Gewandhausorchester, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Festival Orchestra founded especially for the festival, conducted by Gewandhauskapellmeister Andris Nelsons and Anna Rakitina, will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s entire symphonic and concerto oeuvres. An unsurpassed roster of world-class artists will feature in the extensive chamber music series, while two performances of the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Oper Leipzig, conducted by Andris Nelsons, will complete the festival programme.

The Gewandhausorchester has been playing works by Shostakovich since 1929 and gave numerous German premieres. During a visit to Leipzig in 1950, Shostakovich was inspired to compose one of his most famous piano works, the 24
Preludes and Fugues op. 87 for solo piano. Between 1976 and 1978, the Gewandhausorchester was the first orchestra in the world to perform all fifteen of Shostakovich’s symphonies in a cycle.

The Gewandhaus Festival alternates annually with the Opera Festival.

Website Gewandhaus

Website Shostakovich Festival

More information

The appointed Gewandhaus conductor at a big Gewandhaus orchestra concert at Leipzig's Gewandhaus on Augustusplatz in the City of Music, cultural venue, sights

View of Leipzig Gewandhaus next to the Mende Fountain and City Tower on Augustusplatz in the City of Music, cultural institution, sightseeing, Gewandhausorchester

Blick auf den beleuchteten Mendebrunnen und das beleuchtete Gewandhaus zu Leipzig am Augustusplatz am Abend in dem das berühmte Gewandhausorchester spielt und das eine wahre Sehenswürdigkeit der Musikstadt Leipzig ist, Kultureinrichtung

Leipzig Bachfest 2025

"Transformation"

Here, a picture can be seen of the Bach Archive Leipzig from the outside, over it the white Bach Archiv Leipzig writing together with its emblem.

12 - 22 June 2025

Every year in June, the city of Leipzig honours its important Thomas Cantor Johann Sebastian Bach with the Leipzig Bachfest. It pursues a tradition of honouring Bach which was originally initiated by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

The Leipzig Bachfest 2025 will take place from 12 to 22 June and will highlight transformation processes in Johann Sebastian Bach's oeuvre. The programme includes works that Bach himself subjected to a fascinating transformation process, which he created in the style of various European sound preferences, as well as compositions by other composers that he rearranged. Exciting new concert formats are also presented under the umbrella of the 2025 festival motto "Transformation".

Renowned performers from all over the world can be experienced in over 150 events over 11 days, including the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhausorchester.

Advance ticket sales for the Bachfest Leipzig 2025 start on 26 November 2024.

Website Leipzig Bachfest

Travel package

Video about Leipzig Bachfest

BACH300 - 300 years Bach in Leipzig

Bach Festival Leipzig, concert venues

Leipzig Bachfest, dates

11 - 21 June 2026
10 - 20 June 2027

First Leipzig Bachfest

Interior view of St. Nicholas Church during a Bach Festival Leipzig concert in the City of Music, cultural venue, sightseeing — St. Nicholas Church with its architecturally impressive interior is just one of many venues for the Bach Festival, as well as an important site of the Peaceful Revolution.

The first Leipzig Bachfest took place in 1908. It was organized for the unveiling of the "New Bach Monument".

Selected pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach are performed at the festival. Bach lived and worked in Leipzig as the Thomas Cantor at St. Thomas Church from 1723 to his death in 1750.

Around 100 different events take place every year as part of the Leipzig Bachfest.

Bach Competition

The Johann Sebastian Bach competition is a globally significant event for young musicians launched in 1950. From 1996-2024, it took place every two years in July in three alternating subjects: piano, harpsichord and violin. The competition is open to instrumentalists and singers between the ages of 16 and 33. From 2025, the music competition will be held annually in March with a focus on one subject - and a globally streamed final on 21 March, Bach's birthday.

Broadcast: Reiselust (Travel Favourites)

Prof Dr Michael Maul, Artistic Director of the Bach Festival Leipzig, talking to Klassik Radio (Excerpt from the "Reiselust" programme broadcast on 26.09.2021)

klassikradio.de

Podcast Tip

Bach's Cantatas with Maul & Schrammek / mdr Klassik

This podcast by Prof. Michael Maul, Artistic Director of the Bach Festival Leipzig together with the musicologist Bernhard Schrammek, is devoted to the sacred cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Link to the podcast

Mendelssohn Festival Leipzig

A cooperation between Leipzig Gewandhaus and Mendelssohn House

29 October to 4 November 2024

The memory of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy is very much alive in Leipzig: Traditionally, the city honours the composer and musician every year with various concerts around 4 November on Mendelssohn Day, the anniversary of his death. Since 1997, he has also been honoured by the Mendelssohn Festival which took on a new form in 2021 when Leipzig Gewandhaus and the Mendelssohn House began working together to present a varied and sophisticated programme.

Internationally renowned artists put on a rich musical programme, ranging from symphony concerts with the Gewandhausorchester under the direction of Andris Nelsons to choral symphonies, song recitals and chamber music performances. A variety of talks, guided tours and lectures round off the festival programme.

The 2024 Mendelssohn Festival will host the President of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Foundation, Elena Bashkirova, as well as renowned artists such as Sol Gabetta, Bertrand Chamayou and Dorothea Röschmann. This year's festival will be opened for the first time by a female conductor: GemmaNew, Principal Conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, will perform Mendelssohn's 3rd ("Scottish") Symphony with members of the Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy and the Gewandhausorchester.

Mendelssohn, Leipzig and the Mendelssohn Festival

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”Mendelssohn was … a brilliant, incredibly versatile, European and modern-thinking man. Here is the place where you can feel all this.“

Patrick Schmeing, Mendelssohn House Director

Broadcast: Travel Favourites

Patrick Schmeing, Mendelssohn House Director talking to Klassik Radio (Excerpt from the "Reiselust" (travel favourites) programme broadcast on 26.09.2021)

klassikradio.de

Leipzig Opera Festival

Lortzing-Festival 2026

View of the illuminated Leipzig Opera behind the fountain at Augustusplatz with yellow flags at the Opera heralding the Wagner Festival in Leipzig, City of Music.

24 April - 3 May 2026

With its more than 330-year tradition, Oper Leipzig is one of the flagships of Leipzig as a city of music. As early as 1693, the first opera house was opened as the third civic music theatre in Europe after Venice and Hamburg. Since 1840, the world-renowned Gewandhausorchester has played at all performances of the opera and the Leipzig Ballet. In addition to today’s opera house on Augustusplatz, built in 1960, Oper Leipzig includes the “Musikalische Komödie” in the Lindenau district, a special venue for musicals and operettas. Opera fans love both the exciting productions and the first-class musical standard of the house. The international ballet company of the Oper Leipzig also performs at the highest level.

The Leipzig Opera Festival takes place every two years. After a successful start with ‘WAGNER 22’, the international ballet festival ‘Leipzig dances!’ was held in 2024. In 2026, the composer Albert Lortzing will be the focus of the Leipzig Opera Festival to mark the 225th anniversary of his birth and 175th anniversary of his death. He not only premiered many of his operas in Leipzig, but also appeared on stage here as an actor and singer. He worked as opera director at the city theatre for several years.

More information: www.oper-leipzig.de/en/lortzing-in-leipzig

Portrait of the renowned composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived in Leipzig for several years and conducted the St. Thomas Boys Choir in St. Thomas Church as Thomas Cantor, City of Music, culture

Portrait of the famous Leipzig composer Clara Schumann, née Wieck, who later married Robert Schumann and also performed as piano virtuoso in the Leipzig Gewandhaus, culture, Leipzig City of Music.

Portrait of composer Robert Schumann who lived in Leipzig together with his wife Clara Schumann, culture, Leipzig Gewandhaus

Portrait of the composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy who lived in Leipzig, the City of Music and was appointed conductor at Leipzig Gewandhaus, culture

Büste des Leipziger Komponisten Richard Wagner in der Geburts- und Musikstadt, Kultureinrichtung

Etching of composer Gustav Mahler, who worked in Leipzig, City of Music, culture

Leipzig boasts a worldwide unique concentration of originally preserved places where world famous composers lived and worked. The Leipzig Music Trail has been bringing this musical cultural heritage to life for tourists since 12 May 2012. Since individual points of interest are not far away from one another, they can be comfortably visited on foot. At each point of interest, you can get thrilling insights through musical excerpts and information in both German and English. You can also get the full experience on a unique 360° panorama tour.

The Leipzig Music Trail connects the most important original locations in Leipzig city centre over 5.1 km. Curved steel elements embedded into the ground mark the meandering path through the city centre. You can start and end your tour at any of the points of interest. More athletic music-lovers can discover Leipzig's musical history by bicycle from a completely different fascinating perspective on the Leipzig Music Bike Trail.

In addition to the Notenspur tour, the "Notenspuren app" offers other musical walks on Leipzig's music history that can be heard and experienced.

Music Trail map Music Trail App

of Music Trail link up the original musical sites in Leipzig's city centre

are linked via a curved stainless steel band, "intarsia"

is the average distance from one point of interest to the next

of musical history can be discovered over a short distance

Music-Trail-St.-Thomas-Church-Square_City-of-Music-Bach-Monument-St.-Thomas-Church-Leisure-Culture_Philipp-Kirschner_leipzig.travel — Steel band in St. Nicholas Church Square © www.pkfotografie.com, Philipp Kirschner

Additional Musical Highlights

in Leipzig and the region