European Orchestra Festival 2025 | Applications Open
The 13th edition of the European Orchestra Federation festival will take place in Avignon, France from 28 May until 1 June 2025.
The European Orchestra Festival is open to orchestras that are members of the European Orchestra Federation (EOFed), as well as orchestras that are members of national associations that are members of EOFed, so IAYO members are eligible to take part.
Registration for the festival is open now. Learn more at www.europeanorchestrafestival.org.
Applications close on Monday, 30 September 2024.
Applications can be made for orchestras or individual participants.
The Festival is held every three years and brings together orchestras from all over Europe. At the Festival, orchestras have the opportunity to listen to each other perform and also have the opportunity of rehearsing and performing in their choice of festival orchestras. This is an excellent chance to meet other musicians from different countries and backgrounds and to work under incredible conductors. Participants will be able to choose from festival orchestras playing Baroque, Classical, Romantic, French repertoire and film music. Players typically take part in four three-hour rehearsals and a performance with their workshop orchestra in addition to rehearsing and performing one or more concerts with their own orchestra.
At the 2015 edition in Cremona, home of the Stradivarius workshop, there were ten workshop orchestras accommodating the 700 participants, minders and observers. These comprised two each of Italian Baroque, Classical and Romantic, a ‘World Outside the Music Stand’ orchestra that was largely improvised and ‘riff-based’, an ‘Italian traditional’ orchestra that played a selection of opera overtures and arias – because they are the Italian tradition. Finally, there were two orchestras preparing contemporary works, one of which was commissioned specially for the Festival. The conductors of the orchestras were all well accomplished in their own fields, some of them being also conductors of the attending orchestras. Like the orchestras themselves, they hailed from all across the continent and gathered in Cremona for the Festival. More recent festivals have been in Bergen in Norway and Plovdiv in Bulgaria.
As all the venues and hotels in Avignon are in walking distance, attendees will get to know the beautiful city during the Festival. Concert venues will include the function rooms of the Palais des Papes, the Salle des Fêtes in the town hall, Eglise St Didier, Théâtre La Scala and main squares within the city centre. Participants can choose between basic and superior accommodation according to budget. Basic accommodation will be provided at YMCA Avignon 15 mins walk from the centre; and Ibis Budget Avignon Centre and Ibis Avignon Centre Pont de l’Europe. Superior accommodation will be in 3* and 4* hotels such as Ibis Avignon Centre Gare, Mercure and Novotel in the town centre.
In attending the Festival, it is most desirable that full orchestras attend but there are also quite a number of individual musicians or small groups attending that are particularly helpful in filling out the gaps in rare-breed instruments.
2025 Workshops:
- French Baroque music
- Classical period music
- Romantic period music for large orchestra
- French music from the 19th / 20th century
- Symphonic Jazz
- Contemporary music
- Film music
Fees:
Participation fee in basic accommodation: €490 pp
Participation fee in basic accommodation, in dormitory /for youth, under 18: €450 pp
Participation fee in superior accommodation: €600 per person
There will be an online information session at a later date, we will keep you updated on this via email and via our website.
Learn more about the European Orchestra Festival at www.europeanorchestrafestival.org.
