Eight selected concert highlights of Musikfest Berlin, which takes place from 30 August to 23 September 2025 in cooperation with the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, are now available in advance. The selected highlights include guest performances by the world’s best symphony orchestras and choirs from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Italy, which are rarely heard in Berlin. Klaus Mäkelä and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will kick off the programme, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and chief conductor Karina Canellakis will make their Musikfest debut, while Daniel Harding returns to Musikfest Berlin as the new chief conductor of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
The first festival week will also feature four top-class French orchestras: the Orchestre de Paris with Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla for the first time and two of the most important ensembles of historical performance practice, the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées together with the Collegium Vocale Gent under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe and the exceptional French orchestra Les Siècles with two concerts under two conductors in one evening. The full festival programme will be published in April 2025.