Misteria Paschalia Festival 2026

Kraków’s Misteria Paschalia Festival is one of the most important early music festivals in Europe. It has been organised invariably since 2004 by the Krakow Festival Office during Holy Week and Easter, and focuses on works thematically linked to this special time of the Christian liturgical year as well as the Christian sources of European spirituality and tradition. It resounds with compositions from the Middle Ages to the 18th century presented by the renowned interpreters of the historically informed performance movement. The most important works of the early masters are accompanied by numerous musical discoveries and contemporary world premieres, which are often the result of painstaking musicological research and reconstruction: this is a festival where we make musical discoveries and listen to the contemporary premieres of the works by early composers. All events take place in Kraków’s most beautiful spaces in order to combine top-class performances with the city’s historical heritage.

So far, the festival hosted early music greats such as Jordi Savall, René Jacobs, Fabio Biondi and Marc Minkowski, ensembles specialising in historical performance: Il Giardino Armonico, Europa Galante, Les Arts Florissants and Accademia Bizantina, as well as successive generations of internationally applauded artists of this trend, including such ensembles as La Tempête, Pygmalion, Vox Luminis or Cappella Mediterranea. Another important element is the presentation of the work of Polish ensembles, including Capella Cracoviensis, Arte dei Suonatori and {oh!} Orkiestra – or artists such as Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett.

In 2024, Vincent Dumestre, who had already performed at Misteria Paschalia on several occasions with his ensemble Le Poème Harmonique, took over the artistic direction of the festival for three consecutive years. The Misteria Paschalia under his direction consists of the festival’s main cycle Grands Concerts, during which we can hear the greatest works and the most outstanding early music interpreters (the 2025 performances included Requiem de Coimbra prepared by Capella Sanctae Crucis, works by Monteverdi performed by La Guilde des Mercenaires, Bach’s St John Passion presented by Collegium Vocale Gent or Cavalieri’s Lamentations and a programme devoted to Purcell’s music developed by Le Poème Harmonique), and a series of late evening chamber concerts Dormitio. The sacral programme, which is the heart of the festival, is balanced by an exhibition of early music instruments (keyboard instruments in 2024, wind instruments a year later, and string instruments in 2026), accompanied by concerts, lectures, workshops and meetings with instrument makers and musicians.