Tomorrow’s Musicians Today!
Quite a bit has happened during 25 seasons of our festival. Our motivation remains the same.
- Young Euro Classic is the world’s most important platform for international young orchestra musicians in the European classical music tradition and for its development. For 17 days every summer, orchestras from all over the world perform at Berlin’s Konzerthaus on Gendarmenmarkt.
- Young Euro Classic stands for youth culture. The “Bayreuth of the younger generation” (Berliner Morgenpost) has shown itself a beacon event amidst Germany’s cultural landscape, proving that when it comes to being an attractive setting for youth culture, the capital city of Berlin cannot be reduced to the Berghain Club and the independent scene. Berlin is a world-class musical metropolis – due to Young Euro Classic, this is also true when it comes to young classical musicians.
- Young Euro Classic adds a dynamic element to the international orchestra scene and makes it more competitive by enabling the orchestras to present themselves to a knowledgeable Berlin audience. To many of these pre-professional musicians, the performances at Konzerthaus or at the Philharmonie are among the most influential and impressive events of their career. Young Euro Classic has inspired the founding of new orchestras, and it fosters and helps to maintain existing initiatives – in Berlin and all over the world.
- Young Euro Classic is a trailblazer. The principle of founding bi- and multi-national youth orchestras, so impressively initiated by Barenboim and Said, has been intensified and disseminated by Young Euro Classic and has now passed into the very genetics of the youth orchestra scene.
- Young Euro Classic and its orchestras from all around the world inspire public discussion about values. The orchestra as a utopian form of coexistence, as a social and communal model of participation: liberty, equality, fraternity. Here, young musicians work towards the goals which have characterised European orchestral culture for centuries, namely its power to transcend borders and integrate – in the spirit of encounter, exchange, and peaceful coexistence. During our times of crises, these values are an important message.
- Young Euro Classic generates the audience of the future – with sales rates of at least 96% and over 25,000 visitors annually whose average age is significantly below that of “normal” concert-goers. Thus, Young Euro Classic counteracts the constant ageing of the audience. At Young Euro Classic, classical music is young and definitely has a future.
- The success of Young Euro Classic is based on its model of partnership, uniting generations and social strata: musicians, audience members, supporters, proponents of civic commitment, state representatives and sponsors have become part of a network spanning the world. The feeling of partnership this has engendered pervades the festival’s very atmosphere.