Hermann Hesse Festival Calw 2026

Hermann Hesse Festival 2025

The 2025 Hermann Hesse Festival continued the tradition established in recent years: the main evening in the Hirsau monastery ruins with the finalists of the Udo Lindenberg Foundation's Panikpreis. The medieval monastery ruin as an open-air stage, German-language songwriting as the musical focus of the evening — a combination that has attracted audiences from all over the southwest for years.

The festival is embedded in the Calw Monastery Summer, a concert series that organises concerts in the Hirsau monastery ruins every evening during the Baden-Württemberg summer holidays. Pop, jazz, classical music, literary-musical productions — the breadth of the programme reflects the diverse heritage of Hermann Hesse and the town of Calw.