The Heidelberger Frühling was founded in 1997 as a classical music festival and has since developed into a year-round cultural institution that conceives and organises festivals, concert series and conferences with internationally established performers, ensembles, orchestras and speakers as well as support programmes for young artists.
This year also saw the launch of the "re:start" programme with free admission concerts throughout Heidelberg, which reached over 10,000 people.
[6] On 20 April 2022, the 2nd Piano Concerto by American composer William Bolcom was premiered by Igor Levit and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Elim Chan in the Aula of the New University of Heidelberg as part of the festival.
Every two years, the String Quartet Competition of the Irene Steels-Wilsing Foundation is held at the beginning of the festival.
Since 2018, Heidelberger Frühling has been organising the year-round subscription series "Kammermusik Plus" with nine concerts featuring various chamber music ensembles from September to June.
It emerged from the concert series organised by the Gesellschaft der Musik- und Kunstfreunde Heidelberg, which was founded in 1945 and dissolved in 2018.
Mentors from previous academy years were Barbara Bonney, Ian Bostridge, Brigitte Fassbaender, Graham Johnson, Thomas Quasthoff, Wolfram Rieger, Veronika Eberle, Ning Feng, Matan Porat, Thorleif Thedéen, Frederic Rzewski, Manuel Brug and Sophie Diesselhorst.
Cooperation partner is the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin, whose Schubert Week is organised every January by Thomas Hampson with Liedakademie scholars.
Heidelberg is known as the city of Lied – not least thanks to Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim's collection of Lieder Des Knaben Wunderhorn.
This is why the Heidelberger Frühling has set itself the task of making the genre of the Lied accessible to a wider audience once again.
[11] In the past, almost all of the great Lied interpreters have performed in the Neckar city, including Annette Dasch, Jonas Kaufmann, Christine Schäfer, Christian Gerhaher, Christoph Prégardien, Thomas Hampson and many others.
In October 2015, the "Classic Scouts" were honoured with the ECHO Klassik award in the category for promoting young talent.
In the past, the festival has used the atrium of the Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG research and development centre, the Operon Auditorium European Laboratory for Molecular Biology, the Studio Villa Bosch, the Stadtgarten restaurant, the BASF SE Ludwigshafen Gesellschaftshaus and the Mantei bakery as unusual concert venues.