Passauer Saiten — International Guitar Festival

International Guitar Festival with a Clear Vision

Passauer Saiten is more than just a festival series — it's a sound workshop. This is how the artistic director duo Yvonne Zehner and Jürgen Schwenkglenks describes their concept: Musicians from all over the world are invited to create programs specifically for the festival — crossover projects, world premieres, encounters beyond usual genre boundaries. This makes Passauer Saiten more than just a concert series.

Style Spectrum — from Classical to World Music

The program regularly includes classical, jazz, pop, rock, Latin American music, world music, and crossover formats. The 2026 opening will be presented by the Jade Quartet on February 28 at Niedernburg Monastery. Further soloists and ensembles will be announced in the festival program. Sebastian Ambrosius is also promoted in the official program.

Venue Niedernburg Monastery and the Passau Soundscape

The opening venue for 2026 is Niedernburg Monastery, a Benedictine convent with over 1,200 years of history on the banks of the Inn River. The monastery courtyard and church are acoustic treasures — an ideal resonance space for concert guitar. Other venues are spread throughout the city: from the Großer Rathaussaal to the former synagogue, depending on the concert.

Passau — Three-Rivers City on the Inn

Passau, with around 53,000 inhabitants, is the independent city with Bavaria's most distinctive river confluence: the Inn and Ilz flow into the Danube here. The old town with its baroque cityscape, St. Stephen's Cathedral, and the largest cathedral organ in the world is one of Bavaria's most beautiful. The festival consciously incorporates the cityscape — attending concerts becomes a small city walk between the Inn and the Danube.

What Makes the Festival Special

Passauer Saiten is not purely a classical festival nor a purely crossover format. It is both — and with high artistic quality. Anyone attending a concert every two weeks will hear their way through a good portion of today's guitar world. The audience is mixed: students from the University of Passau, classical concert-goers, guitar lovers from Bavaria, Austria, and the Czech Republic.