European festivals Association

Since its inception in 1986, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival (SHMF) has been among the most spectacular international cultural events in the world. Instead of renowned concerts taking place in the usual concert halls and opera houses, they are set in beautiful castles and manors, in barns and stalls, in the most spectacular churches of Schleswig-Holstein and even in unusual locations such as shipyards and industrial halls.

From 1996 to 2013, the artistic concept of the SHMF was to select a feature country for each year and highlight its music and culture. This took us around the globe; from Finland to Japan, from the USA to Russia. With the new director, Dr. Christian Kuhnt, the festival was blazing new trails in 2014 by highlighting a specific composer for each year. Since then the festival has dedicated the composers' retrospective to Felix Mendelssohn, Peter Tschaikowsky, Joseph Haydn, Maurice Ravel, Robert Schumann, Sebastian Bach, Carl Nielsen and Franz Schubert. In 2022 Johannes Brahms will be the focus of the festival.

Another programmatic focus since 2014 has been the artist portrait: each summer a special artist presents a series of concerts and enjoys the freedom to choose programmes and ensembles to play with. After Sol Gabetta, Martin Grubinger, András Schiff, Avi Avital, Sabine Meyer, Janine Jansen and Xavier de Maistre, pianist Hélène Grimaud was the portrait artist of 2021.