KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen

The KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen in Hanover is an annual international and interdisciplinary festival in which music plays a central role. For the 15th edition of the festival, artistic director Ingo Metzmacher and the dramaturgy have again put together a diverse programme that transcends genre boundaries and invites the audience to experience the arts in a unique way. From 16 May to 02 June 2024, Hanover’s biggest international festival presents musical and circus theatre, performances, concerts, dance, theatre, and installations by international artists. The 28 festival productions, which include five German premieres among around 100 individual events, are characterised by new sounds, variety, surprises and artistic curiosity. From indigenous traditions to post-colonial debates, from large orchestral works to spectacular acrobatics, from children’s theatre to retro-futurist opera, the KunstFestSpiele are the meeting-point of diverse cultural currents. Some of the works on display will be specifically commissioned and developed for the venues of the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen. The concert highlight in 2024 is Leonard Bernstein’s MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers, conducted by festival director Ingo Metzmacher, with the Grammy Award-winnner Lucas Meachem, soloists from the jazz choir Vivid Voices, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and nine other Hanover choruses, in the HCC Kuppelsaal on 26.05. This spectacular Broadway religious service, with over 400 performers, is being performed in Hanover for the first time and combines jazz, classical music, gospel and pop into a moving plea for freedom and equality. The central festival venues – the Galerie and Orangerie, the Großer Garten and the Arne Jacobsen Foyer – are located in the magnificent setting of the Herrenhausen Gardens. The DHC-Halle in the immediate vicinity of the Herrenhausen Gardens has meanwhile established itself as a new venue and will also be used this upcoming year. In the KunstFestSpiele's festival centre in the Herrenhausen Gardens, the artists, staff and audience meet in a relaxed atmosphere.