stARTfestival Leverkusen

stARTfestival — Bayer Kultur as Festival Organizer

If you want to understand what industrial culture looks like in Leverkusen, you start with the stARTfestival. For over two months every spring, the cultural department of Bayer transforms the city into a multi-genre stage. With around 30 concerts, dance productions, theater evenings, and premieres, the stARTfestival is one of Germany's largest corporate cultural festivals — and at the same time, Leverkusen's most important cultural event outside of the Jazz Days.

Bayer Kultur — Industrial Culture Since 1901

Bayer Kultur carries an almost 125-year tradition. The in-house Bayer Wind Orchestra was founded in 1901 and celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2026 with a large open-air garden party on May 25 at the Erholungshaus. Other Bayer ensembles (Bayer Symphony Orchestra, Bayer Philharmonic) also celebrate anniversaries. The stARTfestival combines these traditions with modern music programming in a unified festival format.

Six Venues — Leverkusen as a Festival City

The main venue is the Erholungshaus Leverkusen (Nobelstraße 37, Leverkusen-Wiesdorf) — a cultural center built in 1908 specifically for Bayer employees, featuring a large concert hall. The second most important venue is the Scala Club in Leverkusen-Opladen. In addition, there is the Altenberger Dom in neighboring Odenthal (chamber music, organ) and guest performance venues in Berlin, Weimar, and Wuppertal. This geographical spread positions the stARTfestival as a supra-regional festival anchored in Leverkusen.

Program Highlights 2026 — Italian Focus

The 2026 festival has an Italian program focus. The opening on April 17 at the Erholungshaus features "I Dolci Signori". Further highlights include: Chamber Orchestra Vienna-Berlin with French star cellist Gautier Capuçon on April 24; the Kamea Dance Company with their modern adaptation "Carmina Burana 2.0" on April 28; the 125th anniversary of the Bayer Wind Orchestra with an open-air garden party on May 25/26 at the Erholungshaus; the Jazzrausch Bigband with their neo-classical-in-techno format on May 30; the German premiere of "Frida's Dreams" by American composer Gabriela Lena Frank performed by the string quartet Brooklyn Rider (celebrating their 25th anniversary, in cooperation with Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall).

Artist Support — Turkish Pianist Büşra Kayıkçı

A core aspect of the stARTfestival is the support for young artists. In 2026, Turkish pianist and former interior architect Büşra Kayıkçı begins her three-year support partnership with Bayer Kultur. Kayıkçı combines classical piano with pop elements and electronic music and is among the most interesting new pianists in Europe.

In the NRW Festival Context

Within the dense NRW festival landscape — from the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Ruhrtriennale, the Piano Festival Ruhr, to Documenta in Kassel — the stARTfestival has found its own niche with its combination of classical, jazz, dance, and pop. It is not as purist as the Ruhrtriennale, not as large as the Piano Festival Ruhr, but broader, more accessible, and financially secured long-term through industrial patronage. For Leverkusen, it is the cultural highlight of the spring.