The Brucknerfest was introduced in 1974 on the initiative of the artistic director of the Brucknerhaus Horst Stadlmayr and started with an orchestral concert under Herbert von Karajan.
Furthermore, Die Walküre could be heard with Christian Franz (Siegmund), Eva Johannson (Sieglinde), Gabriele Schnaut (Brünnhilde) and Gerd Grochowski (Wotan) under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies.
2011: 11 September to 7 October - Daniel Harding conducted the Filarmonica de la Scala and presented Sibelius' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor and Bernstein's Overture to "Candide" as well as Dvořák's Symphony No.
Among the performing artists were András Schiff, Cameron Carpenter, Neeme Järvi, Eliahu Inbal, Nobuko Imai, Piotr Beczała, Thomas Hampson as well as the Bruckner Orchestra Linz under Markus Poschner.
Artists such as Mauro Peter, Thomas Quasthoff, Howard Griffiths, Antonio Pappano and Christoph von Dohnányi performed at the Brucknerhaus Linz and several other venues from 4 September to 11 October.
Musical performances were given by Michail Jurowski, Waltraud Meier, Günther Groissböck, Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, Thomas Hampson (including master class) and Hartmut Haenchen.
1977: Friedrich Heer – 1978: Gerhard Klingenberg – 1979: Werner Hofmann – 1980: Ernst Krenek – 1981: Anton Neumayr – 1982: Rolf Liebermann – 1983: Fritz Hochwälder – 1984: Erwin Ringel – 1985: Werner Schneyder – 1986: Hilmar Hoffmann – 1987: Erich Fried – 1988: Milo Dor – 1989: Eric J. Hobsbawm – 1990: Franz König – 1991: Axel Corti – 1992: Franz Welser-Möst – 1993: Eduard Goldstücker – 1994: Peter Turrini – 1995: Erika Weinzierl – 1996: Klaus Maria Brandauer – 1997: Hildegard Hamm-Brücher – 1998: Horst-Eberhard Richter – 1999: Erika Pluhar – 2000: Karlheinz Böhm – 2001: Theo Sommer – 2002: SAID – 2003: Peter Huemer – 2004: Anna Mitgutsch – 2005: Anton Zeilinger – 2006: Ari Rath – 2007: Konrad Paul Liessmann – 2008: Renan Demirkan – 2009: Robert Menasse – 2010: Elfriede Hammerl – 2011: Ludwig Adamovich Jr. – 2012: Armin Thurnher – 2013: Ruth Wodak – 2014: Paul Lendvai – 2015: Iris Berben – 2016: Senta Berger – 2017: Harald Krassnitzer – 2018: Daniel Kehlmann – 2019: Wolf D. Prix – 2020: Waris Dirie – 2021: Heinz Fischer – 2022: Jean Ziegler