VIA NOVA – Art Festival Corvey

Art Meets World Heritage

The VIA NOVA Art Festival is the annual contemporary cultural event at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Corvey Castle. The organizer is Kulturkreis Höxter-Corvey gGmbH. In contrast to the primarily musical Summer Concerts and the purely garden-related Garden Festival, VIA NOVA focuses on the combination of literature, music, and discourse — an approach to Corvey's Carolingian past from the perspective of contemporary art.

Date 2026 — A Good Two Weeks of Art

From Friday, August 28 to Sunday, September 13, 2026 — that's a good two weeks. The festival features various event types that can be booked individually (detailed program and tickets at corvey.de).

UNESCO World Heritage Site Corvey Castle

Corvey is one of the most important sites of Carolingian and Ottonian art history in Central Europe. The former imperial abbey was founded in 822, and the famous Carolingian Westwork is one of the few surviving structures from the Carolingian era. In 2014, Corvey was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO — as the World Heritage Site 'Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey'.

Program Types

VIA NOVA works with several event formats:

• Staged Readings — contemporary authors read their texts in the historical rooms of Corvey, often with scenic and musical accompaniment
• Concerts — from early music (fitting the Carolingian history) to contemporary classical music and experimental crossover
• Discussions — moderated talks with authors, art historians, theologians, philosophers on topics connecting the World Heritage site with current issues
• Excursions — guided tours through the World Heritage site and the surrounding area, often with curated thematic focuses (Carolingian art, book culture, landscape history)

The Three Major Festivals of Corvey

Corvey hosts three major cultural series annually:

• Summer Concerts Corvey (May to July) — classical concert series at the World Heritage site
• Garden Festival Corvey (July to August) — event series centered around the historic castle park
• VIA NOVA Art Festival (late August to mid-September) — the contemporary cultural festival

Höxter and the Weserbergland

Höxter is a small town of around 28,000 inhabitants in the far east of North Rhine-Westphalia, directly on the Weser river and on the border with Lower Saxony. The combination of a historic town center, Corvey World Heritage site, and its location in the Weserbergland makes the town a cultural attraction — VIA NOVA significantly shapes the cultural identity.