Säckingen Chamber Music Evenings

79th Season — Chamber Music with Tradition Since the End of the War

The Säckingen Chamber Music Evenings are one of the oldest continuously held concert series in Southern Germany. Founded shortly after the Second World War, the series has developed over seven decades into a fixed date in the Southern German chamber music calendar — with concerts from autumn to spring, annually around eight to ten evenings, bringing international soloists and renowned ensembles to the Kursaal Bad Säckingen.

Kursaal Bad Säckingen — The Venue

The Kursaal Bad Säckingen is the central event stage of the spa town on the Hochrhein. The historically furnished hall offers the acoustic warmth that chamber music demands — not a concert hall scale like the Tonhalle Zurich, but deliberately intimate. For the Säckingen series, the program is deliberately tailored to this space: string quartets, piano trios, song recitals, piano recitals, wind ensembles.

Spring Program 2026

January 20, 2026 — Sestetto Stradivari

Opening the new year: the Sestetto Stradivari, the Italian string sextet composed of soloists from the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. On historical Stradivari instruments, they interpret the great sextet repertoire by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schoenberg.

February 22, 2026 — Ilya Shmukler, Piano

Solo piano recital by the Russian-born pianist Ilya Shmukler, who, after studies in Moscow and Hanover, is now one of the outstanding representatives of his generation — prize winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Cleveland International Piano Competition. Program focuses on the great romantic piano literature (Schumann, Liszt, Scriabin, or Rachmaninoff).

April 19, 2026 — Atos Trio

Season finale with the Atos Trio, one of the most renowned German piano trios of our time. Annette von Hehn (violin), Stefan Heinemeyer (cello), and Thomas Hoppe (piano) bring classical trio repertoire (Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann) and modern extensions to the program.

Foundation Support

The series is supported by the Tourism and Culture Office Bad Säckingen and financially by the Volksbank Rhein-Wehra Foundation as well as the Ladislaus and Annemarie von Ehr Foundation, which particularly supports concerts with violinist Juri Tetzlaff. This stable financing structure allows for the high standard and enables affordable ticket prices compared to many other concert series.

Bad Säckingen — Spa Town on the Hochrhein

The spa town of Bad Säckingen (AGS 08337, Waldshut district) is located on the Hochrhein on the Swiss border, overlooking the river to Stein-Säckingen in the canton of Aargau. Famous for the wooden bridge over the Rhine (approx. 200 m long, one of the longest covered wooden bridges in Europe), Schloss Schönau (with the Trumpet Museum, commemorating Joseph Viktor von Scheffel and his 'Trumpeter of Säckingen'), and the St. Fridolinsmünster. The town's cultural tradition is closely linked to the chamber music series — in winter and spring, it offers what the open-air program and the Fridolin procession provide in summer.

Why Attend

For chamber music lovers on the Hochrhein, in the Black Forest, Basel, and Zurich, the series is a hidden gem: high standard, intimate atmosphere, reasonable prices, well-structured season dramaturgy. Booking concerts of this caliber in Berlin or Munich would cost several times as much. The atmosphere in the Kursaal overlooking the Rhine makes the evening a journey.