Between 4 and 13 April, the Bartók Spring will once again present unmissable events at venues across Budapest: Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann will appear in concert together, Barnabás Kelemen will play with the Münchner Philharmoniker, Júlia Pusker will be the guest of the Kammerorchester Basel, Jan Garbarek and Wynton Marsalis will be among the headliners, and the Budapest Ritmo will celebrate its anniversary.

Preparing to enter its fifth year, the event series has come a long way since its inception in 2021. ‘It’s never easy to launch a new festival, but the epidemic introduced another hurdle in the staging of the first Bartók Spring,’ recalls Müpa Budapest CEO Csaba Káel. ‘But looking back, I can proudly say we overcame the obstacles and created an event that Hungarian and international performers are happy to be part of.’ And there will be no shortage of world stars in 2025 either: Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann, who are favourites with the Hungarian audience, will give an evening of lieder together, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the ensemble that is most familiar with the era of Bach, will have his grand oratorio, the St Matthew Passion on its programme, and one of the most influential figures in European jazz, Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek comes with one of his favourite musicians, Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu.

‘It has always been part of our mission to make the performances of world stars both events that audiences enjoy and opportunities that Hungarian artists can benefit from,’ says Janina Szomolányi, Operative Director of the festival. ‘To this end, every year we seek to put on productions where international performers share the stage with Hungarian musicians.’ Those who come to the festival in 2025 will again witness several collaborations of this kind. Barnabás Kelemen will take on solo duties at the first Budapest concert of the Munich Philharmonic, and they will literally conjure up a Bartók spring on the stage with pieces by the Festival’s eponym on the programme, as well as Schumann’s Spring Symphony. Always the keen perfectionists, the Kammerorchester Basel will feature the vastly talented violinist, Júlia Pusker at their concert, while the Jazz at the Lincoln Center Orchestra, which is led by Wynton Marsalis and comprises some of today’s best instrumental soloists, will be joined by the New York-schooled trumpeter, Balázs Szalóky.

Productions involving a multitude of art forms and created specifically for the festival have been regularly featured in the programme over the years, and 2025 will not be different in this regard. The dancers of the Corvinus-Közgáz Folk Dance Ensemble, the actors of Forte Company and students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts will bring to life so many movements of Bartók’s Mikrokosmos in the scenery of Mezőség, with texts by the Transylvanian writer, András Sütő complementing the music and the dance. Continuing their incredibly exciting collaboration for the third year, the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble and the Ballet Company of Győr have been exploring the influence of the culture of distant regions on Bartók’s work. The multi-art vision of Pure Source now reveals the fascinating and complex relationship between folk dance and the composed music of the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as 20th-century modernists’ experience of folk music, through the work of Bach and the collections of Bartók. Budapest Ritmo is preparing for a celebration, as one of the region’s most important world music festivals awaits musical adventurers for the tenth time, with large-scale and showcase concerts, DJ sets, and professional conferences, presenting performers from all over the world, from acts mixing ancient traditions with modern sounds to ones that play rarely heard instruments.