The Berlin Philharmonic⁩ will return to Salzburg Easter Festival starting in 2026.

The news comes as the orchestra announced that 2025 will be its last year at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival.

In a statement, Nikolaus Bachler said “the Salzburg Easter Festival will once again have a permanent resident orchestra from 2026: the Berlin Philharmonic. Herbert von Karajan founded the Easter Festival together with this orchestra in 1967 and now the orchestra is returning to the tradition-rich festival on the Salzach.”

He added “Exciting years lie ahead – until 2025 we want to welcome a different top orchestra to the Easter Festival every year. However, I am very pleased that we have succeeded in tying the founding orchestra to this very special festival again – because the Berlin Philharmonic and Salzburg have a shared history of more than 40 years, which will blossom anew with principal conductor Kirill Petrenko from 2026.”

Meanwhile, Baden-Baden’s director Benedikt Stampa noted, “We are very grateful to the Berliner Philharmoniker that they built up the Baden-Baden Easter Festival with us and then combined it twelve times by 2025 with new opera productions and many concerts. The orchestra gave us important impetus for the seven annual Baden-Baden music, opera and dance festivals, which we would like to develop further with other artistic partners at Easter.”

Andrea Zietzschmann, Artistic Director of the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation added, “We are very grateful to the supporters and the entire team of the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden for the many years of friendly cooperation at this special festival.”