The Beethovenfest Bonn is one of the oldest and most important music festivals in Germany. Founded in 1845 by Franz Liszt in Beethoven's birthplace, it is now an internationally recognized cultural beacon with around 80 events in Bonn and the region every year in August and September.
Under its artistic director Steven Walter, the Beethovenfest is currently repositioning itself: as a festival that reaches out to all demographic groups, a festival that thinks radically contemporary and future-oriented to a living tradition, testing out the future of concert life in a variety of ways and playing a significant role in shaping it.
»All men become brothers« is the core message of the famous ode »To Joy« from Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The first festival under the artistic direction of Steven Walter is directed towards humanity’s diversity and wants to translate Beethoven's humanistic gesture into concrete programming: a festival of musical diversity; a coming together of the most diverse origins and identities in the common »home of music«; a celebration in which Beethoven's work meets the diverse world of the 21st century.