About
Over a long holiday weekend in May, Víkingur Ólafsson, the star pianist from Iceland, hosts Lucerne Festival Pulse.
"The pulse is an unmistakable sign of life and the foundation of music itself. Like the pulse of the human heart, the musical pulse beats evenly yet is never static. It is not mechanical but allows for interpretative freedom. It responds to our emotions and experiences, its pace ever changing, yet it sustains equilibrium, ensuring that the lifeblood of the music reaches all its extremities.”
At the heart of it all is the piano: Víkingur Ólafsson performs solo and with orchestra, plays chamber music, and explores connections with other art forms. But Pulse is more than a piano festival. In its inaugural edition in 2026, Ólafsson’s program stretched from Johann Sebastian Bach to the present day: collaborating with light artist Olafur Eliasson, he transformed Bach’s Goldberg Variations into a synesthetic experience at the Piuskirche in Meggen. He teamed up with the Danish String Quartet and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and he even set 100 metronomes ticking in György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique. The program also included Patricia Kopatchinskaja in Alban Berg’s deeply moving Violin Concerto, Elim Chan conducting Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, and Thomas Adès presenting his short oratorio America – A Prophecy.
Lucerne Piano Festival "Pulse" 2027 is the main event of the year with the participation of world classical music stars.
If you are interested in this schedule leave a request. As soon as the playbill is announced, we will let you know immediately, and you will be the first to get the tickets.
In each section, you will get the best seats for the same price - centrally located and in front rows.
We provide seats with the best acoustics only.
Even in the world's best concert halls and opera houses, the listening conditions can vary greatly, and some seats are better than others. Sometimes nearby seats have very different viewing and listening conditions.
Usually, these seats are sold out soon and available for early bookers only. We guarantee that you will receive full-view seats only.
Detailed information about the 2026 Festival will be added later.
Please read about the previous Lucerne Piano Festival "Pulse" 2026:
The Lucerne Piano Festival “Pulse” 2026 invites you to experience classical music in motion — alive, evolving, and deeply connected to the present moment. Taking place from May 8 to May 17, 2026, this visionary festival transforms Lucerne into a laboratory of sound, where piano music becomes the heartbeat of a bold artistic dialogue between centuries, styles, and ideas.
Curated by the internationally acclaimed pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, the inaugural edition unfolds under the evocative theme “Time and Space.” Here, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach meets the voices of today, creating a seamless journey from the Baroque era to contemporary sound worlds. The program is conceived not simply as a sequence of concerts, but as an immersive narrative — a true playground of ideas where tradition and innovation coexist.
At the heart of the festival lies an extraordinary series of concert experiences. A defining highlight is Ólafsson’s performance of the Goldberg Variations, reimagined through a unique collaboration with visual artist Olafur Eliasson. In this striking fusion of music and light, sound becomes visible, transforming the concert into a multisensory journey that resonates far beyond the stage.
The festival’s musical spectrum extends far beyond solo recitals. Audiences will encounter refined chamber programs with the Danish String Quartet, alongside meditative works by Morton Feldman and contemporary masterpieces by Arvo Pärt, György Kurtág, and Thomas Adès — the latter also appearing on the podium.
Grand orchestral textures enrich the program through performances by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Elim Chan, while violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja brings expressive intensity to works such as Berg’s Violin Concerto.
What defines Pulse is its spirit of creative encounter. Solo recitals, chamber music, and orchestral concerts are interwoven with innovative formats where light, space, and sound interact freely. The result is a festival that feels both intellectually engaging and emotionally immediate — a place where music is not preserved, but rediscovered.
The Lucerne Piano Festival “Pulse” 2026 is more than a series of concerts — it is a living rhythm, where past and future resonate together, and every performance becomes a moment of artistic transformation.
About the Lucerne Piano Festival
A glimmer of light in late November grey: lasting nine days, Lucerne’s Piano Festival attracts the top talents of the international keyboard scene – both legendary masters and emerging stars – to the idyllic setting of Lake Lucerne.
Great events appear on the horizon in advance. So it makes sense that the 2020 Beethoven Year at LUCERNE FESTIVAL actually begins six weeks ahead of time. Beethoven’s piano music will be the focus of our Piano Festival, from 16 to 24 November.
Rudolf Buchbinder, one of the great Beethoven interpreters, will perform all five piano concertos over two evenings on the opening weekend. Igor Levit will continue his Lucerne cycle of all 32 Beethoven sonatas with two recitals, having already started the cycle during the Summer Festival with two programs. Evgeny Kissin and Víkingur Ólafsson, the acclaimed newcomer from Iceland, will also devote themselves to Beethoven’s sonatas.
And that’s not all. Dame Mitsuko Uchida will offer an all-Schubert recital. Arcadi Volodos returns to Lake Lucerne after a 14-year hiatus to play poetic and virtuoso works by Schumann and Liszt.
As part of the Debut series, Claire Huangci, Danae Dörken, and Alexander Ullman will show us who today’s emerging stars are. And Piano Off-Stage expands the keyboard spectrum with the sounds of jazz over six evenings, as eight masters of improvisation perform in Lucerne’s loveliest bars and restaurants.
It all amounts to quite a celebration. At the same time, it marks a farewell, since this will be the final edition of the Piano Festival in this form. Starting in 2020, LUCERNE FESTIVAL will present a fresh look. But going forward, the piano will certainly continue to play a leading role with us. Because without these 88 white and black keys, music would not be what it is.
