Experience the next generation of musicians from 25 nations and regions from 1-17 August 2025 at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Tickets go on sale on Thursday, 10 April 2025.

We live in turbulent times of change, in which people are being deprived of their homes and ignorance leads to division and a lack of empathy. In the evening concerts, Young Euro Classic sets an example for the lively and rich traditions of Europe. The National Youth Orchestra of Romania opens the festival with two women in leading musical positions - rising stars Katharina Wincor on the conductor's podium and Ioana Cristina Goicea on the violin. After a long break, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland returns to Berlin - this time with chief conductor Catherine Larsen-Maguire. The audience can also look forward to the Orchestre Français des Jeunes with its recently appointed chief conductor Kristiina Poska; the National Youth Orchestra of Slovakia will perform under the direction of Sophie Dervaux from France. The parade of the best national youth orchestras, which have already demonstrated their outstanding quality several times at Young Euro Classic, will continue from Spain to the Netherlands and Norway.

No orchestra demonstrates the importance of its own musical traditions as clearly as the Afghan Youth Orchestra: from their forced exile, the young musicians are fighting to ensure that authentic Afghan musical traditions are heard and saved from destruction. The orchestra's home, the country's only music school in Kabul, was closed and looted after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. The young musicians had to flee their home country and find shelter in Portugal - the only country that granted them asylum. As the ‘voice of a country that has no music’, they will combine Afghan musical traditions with European orchestral culture in their programme on the final evening of the festival. 

This chimes with the motto of this year's festival within the festival ‘FUTURE NOW - Tomorrow's Traditions Today’: five afternoon weekend concerts will focus on musical forms from Indonesia and India, The Gambia, Bolivia and of the Sámen in northern Fennoscandia. Supposed contradictions are reconciled: tradition and experiment, indigenous instruments and electronic beats - past and future resound in the present.

This year, the O/Modernt New Generation Symphony Orchestra once again adds a distinctive flavour to the wide range of sounds for which Young Euro Classic is renowned. The extraordinarily creative ensemble led by its conductor Hugo Ticciati offers a journey through four centuries of music, from around 1600 to the present day. And as always, contemporary music has a firm place at Young Euro Classic: composers of the younger generation will present their new works to the Berlin festival audience for the first time - and as always, an audience jury will decide on the winner of the European Composition Award 2025. 

And what would the festival be without the Bundesjugendballett, which regularly elicits great enthusiasm? Just like dance fans, jazz fans can also rejoice. Even better: the JM Jazz World Orchestra under Luis Bonilla is the first ensemble to come to Young Euro Classic which brings together hand-picked young jazz talents from all over the world. Its German counterpart is the brilliant Bundesjazzorchester focussing this year on the music of artists persecuted under National Socialism. Those who prefer to listen to the great symphonic orchestral works will be spoilt for choice this summer: works by Dvořák, Mahler and Mozart as well as Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Debussy and Bernstein will be performed. They can be experienced in thrilling interpretations that combine skill, ambition and enthusiasm to create the variety that makes the 26th edition of Young Euro Classic so distinctive.

Organizer: Deutscher Freundeskreis 
europäischer Jugendorchester e.V. 
Berlin.