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45th Gustav Mahler Music Weeks in Toblach

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Press Release 2025

45 Years of the Gustav Mahler Music Weeks – A Feast for the Senses

July 12 to August 5, 2025 in Dobbiaco, 3 Zinnen Dolomites Region

An International Institution Celebrates its Anniversary

The 45th edition of the Gustav Mahler Music Weeks in Dobbiaco, taking place from July 12 to August 5, promises to be an extraordinary celebration of music. Founded in 1981 on the 70th anniversary of Mahler's death, the Music Weeks have grown into an international institution.

Unique worldwide: The Gustav Mahler Music Weeks remain the only music festival that consistently and intensively places Gustav Mahler at its center with unparalleled consistency and impressive intensity.

Diverse Program with International Artists

This year's Music Weeks in the 3 Zinnen Dolomites region offer a program that leaves little to be desired in terms of variety. From established orchestras like the Jena Philharmonic, to young rising talents such as the Junge Philharmonie Wien or the Gustav Mahler Academy, to the regional Mahler Orchestra Toblach, this summer's symphonic repertoire is broad and diverse.

World-renowned classical music figures such as John Eliot Gardiner and Mario Brunello, alongside emerging young talents like Benjamin Appl and Francesco Tropea, will turn Dobbiaco into a unique fusion of music and natural landscape through orchestral concerts, ensemble performances, and top-class chamber music.

Mahler's Contemporary Relevance

It is well known that Mahler's compositions condense human emotions in a way that spans from fragility to euphoria. However, the fact that the expressive power of his music appears just as contemporary in the current century as in the previous one has remained underexplored.

Especially in Dobbiaco, where Mahler spent his final summers and where he composed one of his most important works "in a frenzy of haste and urgency" – quite contemporary indeed – his music finds under the Dolomites the acoustic space it truly deserves.

Mahler is not just a composer for connoisseurs, but an artist who connects generations. His music particularly speaks to young people because it tells of existential experiences: longing and loneliness, ecstasy and collapse. In times when emotions move to the foreground, Mahler's uncompromising emotional intensity is a revelation.

Festival Opening and Highlights

In this spirit, the Junge Philharmonie Wien under the direction of Michael Lessky will open the festival on July 12 with Mahler's most extensive and arguably most complex work, the 3rd Symphony.

On the following day, the Viennese ensemble Divinerinnen, which includes Wiener Philharmoniker Andrea Götsch, will bring the sounds of Schrammelmusik from Vienna to South Tyrol – just as Mahler once did. Additionally, the Camerata Vienna-Milano will make its debut in Dobbiaco. Founded in 2024, this elite ensemble unites musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic and the Orchestra of Teatro alla Scala under the direction of Jurek Dybal.

"The Gustav Mahler Weeks are a place of longing," says Sybille Werner, conductor of the Mahler Orchestra Toblach. "Every Mahler fan dreams of hearing the Ninth Symphony in the very place where it was written."

Composed in Dobbiaco in 1909, the 9th Symphony will return to its place of origin on July 18 with the Jena Philharmonic under Simon Gaudenz – a deeply moving moment of connection between landscape and sound, as can only be experienced here.

The Unique Connection of Nature and Music

To truly understand Mahler's late works, one must experience the landscapes that inspired him: the wide alpine meadows, the rugged cliffs of the Dolomites, the deep forests. Nowhere else can one walk in his footsteps during the day, absorb the stillness of the mountains, and dive into his sonic worlds in the evening.

Vienna may have its concert tradition, Berlin its intellectual sharpness – but only in Dobbiaco do nature and music merge into such a total work of art.

Scientific Conference and Special Events

In addition to the musical highlights, the scholarly conference of the Gustav Mahler Research Centre Innsbruck/Dobbiaco will present a new focus in Mahler studies: the role of humor in Mahler's work as a compositional and rhetorical device.

Presentations by internationally recognized musicologists, such as Federico Celestini, Morten Solvik, as well as organizers Anna Stoll Knecht, Alice Verti and others, will shed light on grotesque, satirical, and self-reflective aspects of his oeuvre.

Not least, philosopher and former mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, will speak about Karl Kraus' engagement with World War I in his classic work "The Last Days of Mankind."

Special Experiences for All Generations

July 20: A hike will lead to Mahler's composing hut for a special highlight, where Isabel Goller, in collaboration with the Südtirol Filarmonica, will perform a harp concert.

July 21: The youngest Mahler fans (ages 8–12) will be offered an experience day, featuring a nature-based sound exploration with naturalist Josef Hackhofer and a creative music workshop with music educator Max Calanducci to experience Mahler's Dobbiaco.

An Invitation to Experience

We invite you to experience this special place this summer. The Gustav Mahler Music Weeks in Dobbiaco are not just another festival. They are an invitation to open yourself to Mahler's music, to connect it with the landscape and with your own inner world. It is an experience that will stay with you.

Contact us for more information, press accreditations, and program details. We look forward to welcoming you to Dobbiaco!