Kronberg im Taunus, 5 October 2026 – After 13 intensive days, the Kronberg Festival 2026 “Courage!” came to an end yesterday. More than 30 concerts and events, public cello masterclasses, an exhibition on Pablo Casals, a panel discussion, readings, workshops and interactive formats brought courage and conviction to life in many different ways – through artistic personalities who raise their voices, through music that transcends boundaries, and through encounters between generations. Around 12,400 visitors also underline the strong response to this year’s festival.
Marking the 150th anniversary of Pablo Casals’ birth, Kronberg Academy placed a question at the heart of the festival that reaches far beyond music: Where do people find the courage to follow their inner convictions and act upon them? The festival did not answer this question with a single statement, but through a wide range of artistic and biographical examples. From the outset, “Courage!” was conceived as an interplay of artistic daring, personal conviction, social responsibility and the strength to embark on something new.
At the close of the festival, Raimund Trenkler, founder and Intendant of Kronberg Academy, drew a connection between the festival motto and the Academy’s artistic ethos: “It is about finding your own voice, about conviction – and perhaps, ultimately, about finding the path to your own heart and having the courage to follow it. Whatever the cost.”
Courage in action
The opening itself sent a powerful signal: Venezuelan pianist and composer Gabriela Montero received the Pablo Casals Award – For a Better World in recognition of the way she combines exceptional artistic achievement with social engagement. Montero sees art and conscience as inseparable and has long spoken out publicly for human rights, democracy and freedom in her native Venezuela.
Elsewhere, too, the festival motto took on a tangible form. Iranian composer Sarvenaz Safari wrote a new work for the festival, “C wie…”, as did Christian Jost and Yuri Laniuk. Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica performed a commissioned work on the theme by the young Estonian composer Alisson Kruusmaa – bringing the question of courage explicitly into the present through new compositions and world premieres. In a contribution to the festival, Fazıl Say emphasised how important it had been for him to take part in Kronberg under the motto “Courage!” in particular – a personal connection that directly linked his uncompromising artistic language and stance with the festival’s central idea.
And sometimes the music spoke entirely for itself: Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, performed by Ensemble Resonanz under Riccardo Minasi, quite literally stirred the audience in the Casals Forum. The work had been deliberately placed within the festival as a musical “confrontation with fate” – music that does not merely portray courage to its listeners, but almost demands it of them. Stegreif – The Improvising Symphony Orchestra demonstrated just how boldly classical music can be reimagined today with “freeEROICA”: without conductor, sheet music or chairs, and with improvisation, recomposition and movement throughout the space. The audience responded with a standing ovation. Including such formats in the festival programme also reflects Kronberg Academy’s commitment to creating space for new forms of concert presentation and opening up new ways of experiencing classical music.
What remains? Voices from the audience
The fact that “Courage!” extended far beyond the edge of the stage was particularly evident in the audience response. Throughout the festival, visitors recorded their personal thoughts on the “Courage Wall” in the Casals Forum: What does courage mean? What is worth standing up for? And what kind of conviction sustains us even in the face of resistance?
One English-language contribution put it particularly poetically and succinctly: “Courage is opening your soul fearlessly to the world.” Another visitor offered a deeply personal thought: “To me, courage means being able to apologise.” Over the course of the 13 festival days, these many different reflections formed a collective picture of what courage can mean to people in very concrete terms.
A touch of Pablo Casals – and encounters across generations
The history of Kronberg Academy felt particularly immediate in moments that can hardly be planned. When 78-year-old cellist Miklós Perényi performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, there seemed, for one evening, to be a direct connection to Pablo Casals: Perényi had once been his student – and in the intimate, concentrated quality of his playing, a trace of Casals seemed to pass through the hall.
At the panel discussion “Casourage”, 97-year-old writer and commentator Paul Lendvai and Sir András Schiff met the young musicians Cosima Soulez Larivière and Noga Shaham. Lendvai and Schiff, whose biographies have also been shaped by experiences of political oppression, entered into conversation with a younger generation of artists about civil courage, personal responsibility and the role of art today.
This also revealed one of Kronberg Academy’s central ideas: great artistic personalities, young musicians and people with very different life stories encounter one another not only on stage, but beyond it as well.
Young talents between masterclass and stage
This passing on of experience was also at the heart of the public cello masterclasses. Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Maintz, Ildikó Szabó and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt worked with 185 young cellists from 35 countries. The public lessons offered an immediate insight into how musical experience is passed on and how young artists are encouraged to develop a voice of their own.
With the cello masterclasses and the 150th anniversary of Pablo Casals’ birth, 2026 had been, as Raimund Trenkler remarked in his closing speech, “in many respects a true year of the cello.”
Violin Making Biennale expands the festival: a meeting place for audiences and professionals
The Kronberg Violin Making Biennale, held from 29 September to 2 October, added a distinctive dimension of its own: 33 violin makers, bow makers and string manufacturers from seven countries once again transformed the Stadthalle into an international meeting place centred on string instruments. For the first time, Kronberg Academy also enabled three young violin makers from Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands to take part in the exhibition free of charge – once again creating the intergenerational link that is so characteristic of Kronberg, this time in the field of instrument making. The connection between craftsmanship and music became particularly vivid during the public sound demonstrations: Ildikó Szabó, Sào Soulez Larivière and Alexey Stychkin selected instruments and bows from the exhibition and made their different tonal characteristics directly audible.
Kronberg Festival 2027 “Resonance Space Music”
Following “Courage!”, the Kronberg Festival 2027 turns its attention to a theme that touches both music and society: resonance. From 21 September to 3 October 2027, the festival will open up spaces of resonance – for music and for people.
What does it mean to truly perceive one another, to listen and to be changed through exchange? Music makes this immediately tangible. In the Casals Forum – itself an outstanding acoustic resonating body and at the same time a place of encounter – leading artistic personalities, young musicians, ensembles and major orchestras will meet an attentive audience.
From festival to season: four facets of the Casals Forum
With the end of the festival, the 2026/27 season in Kronberg begins at the same time. It opens on 14 October with one of the popular MittwochsKonzerte, in which Kronberg Academy students curate their own programmes and present their individual artistic voice.
The following days already reveal the breadth of programming at the Casals Forum: Katharina Konradi and Joseph Middleton open the song recital series on 16 October. One day later, Tabea Zimmermann celebrates her 60th birthday with a deeply personal concert, “An die Musik”, together with friends and young musicians, in a programme ranging from Hildegard von Bingen, Bach, Hindemith and Schubert to jazz. On 24 October, Omer Klein and his band The Poetics bring jazz to the Casals Forum.
And from 23 to 25 October, “Mit Musik – Miteinander” places a fourth facet centre stage, one that lies at the very heart of Kronberg Academy’s DNA: young prizewinners from youth music competitions perform together with Academy students, learn from one another and pass on their experience. Public rehearsals and a concluding workshop concert make this process directly accessible to audiences.
Further information and the complete season programme are available at: www.kronbergacademy.de
About Kronberg Academy
Kronberg Academy is one of the world’s leading centres for the training and artistic exchange of young violinists, violists, cellists and pianists. Under the umbrella of the Kronberg Academy Foundation, young soloists work in Kronberg with some of the most influential artistic personalities of our time and can complete Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees through Kronberg Academy’s study programmes. Concerts, festivals and international appearances regularly give them the opportunity to perform alongside their role models. Kronberg Academy’s guiding principles are inspired by Pablo Casals’ humanistic credo: art, humanity and respect for nature are inseparably connected. This is also reflected in the Casals Forum, a concert hall with an integrated study centre that can be operated on a carbon-neutral basis.
Press contact
Kronberg Academy Foundation
Beethovenplatz 1
61476 Kronberg im Taunus
www.kronbergacademy.de
Sacha Knoche
Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 (0) 177 - 4137338
s.knoche(at)kronbergacademy.de