Family Matters – Daniel Hope presents the programme for Menuhin Festival Gstaad 2026
Since November 1, 2025, Daniel Hope has been steering the artistic future of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad as its intendant. With his first program, entitled Family Matters, he is deliberately building on the founding idea of the Festival: 70 years ago, Yehudi Menuhin brought friends and companions from all over the world to the picturesque village of Saanen in the Bernese Alps in a spirit of openness and unity. Hope is now carrying on this spirit. From July 16 to September 5, 2026, over 75 concerts will take place in the churches of Saanen and its neighboring villages of Zweisimmen, Lauenen, Gsteig, and Rougemont, as well as in the large Festival Tent in Gstaad. A pivotal innovation is The Summit, a forum for discussing future-oriented questions about music, culture, the economy, and society.
Menuhin festival academy
It is with the idea of perpetuating its commitment to the next generation that Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy created the Menuhin Festival Academy in 2008: a structure in its own right to support an increasingly rich academic offer. At the Menuhin Festival Academy we offer the complete range of master courses addressed to young professionals, as well as all the courses which are aimed at amateur orchestra musicians of all ages.
the Gstaad Concert Hall
The Vision for the Gstaad Concert Hall Gains Momentum and Public Support.
A world-class concert hall with 1,200 seats – designed with state-of-the-art acoustics and modern architecture – is set to replace the current Gstaad Festival Tent and reinforce Gstaad’s position as a cultural hotspot.
Closely linked to this vision is a new multi-purpose venue that will host sports and events all year round. A major milestone on the path to realisation came on April 4, 2025, when residents of the Saanen municipality overwhelmingly approved funding for the planning phase of the sports and event hall. A clear message: the community stands behind the project and its ambitious goals.
YEHUDI MENUHIN
Lord Menuhin, the founder of the Gstaad classical music festival bearing his name, is still remembered as a world famous violin child prodigy, conductor and humanist. His remarkable humanity, his multi-faceted artistic gifts and his perpetual curiosity were the hallmarks of his creative endeavours. It was in 1957 that this honorary resident of Saanen founded the legendary festival in the Saanenland. The promotion of young talent was just as important to him as playing music amongst friends.
