Lebanon Festival Elbphilharmonie

The Elbphilharmonie Opens to Lebanon

The Lebanon Festival is one of the two major thematic festivals of the 2026/27 season at the Elbphilharmonie — and thus part of the anniversary program for the Hamburg concert hall's tenth birthday. With the Lebanon Festival, the musical culture of a country is brought to the fore, whose rich sonic tradition is hardly systematically presented in Western concert halls.

Four Days Between Tradition and Modernity

From October 29 to November 1, 2026, the festival spans a spectrum between ancient musical traditions and contemporary sounds. The program features:

• Powerful Voices — Lebanese singers in the tradition of great Arab vocal art
• Energetic Dance Music from the contemporary Lebanese scene
• Regional Instruments — Oud, Qanun, Nay, Daf — and their modern playing styles
• Crossover projects between classical Arabic music and electronic production

The HafenCity Stage

The venue is the Elbphilharmonie in the newly built HafenCity district — with its Grand Hall (2,100 seats, acoustically one of the most spectacular concert halls in the world) and the Recital Hall (550 seats, ideal for chamber music and intimate sets). The festival events are spread across both halls, utilizing their acoustic diversity for different program formats.

In the Elbphilharmonie's Anniversary Year

2026/27 marks the 10th anniversary of the Elbphilharmonie as a concert venue (opening: January 11, 2017). The Lebanon Festival, alongside another thematic festival, is a programmatic cornerstone of the anniversary year. The Elbphilharmonie thus explicitly positions itself as a global meeting place: classical music, contemporary composition, jazz, world music — all under the roof of Hamburg's most famous concert hall.

Diaspora and Bridge Building

Hamburg has a significant Lebanese diaspora, many families with Syrian, Palestinian, and Lebanese roots. The festival is therefore not only a cultural but also a social program: a bridge between the established Hamburg concert audience and communities whose musical tradition has rarely been presented on major stages until now.