City of Dresden Receives Funding for New Richard Wagner Academy

The €15-million grant will enable a new complex to be built, including a 600-seat concert hall among other spaces

Germany's KulturInvest program, alongside the country's Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, has approved a grant of €15 million for the Dresdner Musikfestspiele to establish a new Richard Wagner Academy.

The academy will comprise two major components. First, a brand-new building will be constructed on the Königsufer, which will feature a 600-seat concert hall as well as spaces for rehearsals and workshops, archives, and seminar rooms.

Second, the academy will be a global center for performance of and research on 19th-century music, and in particular for 19th-century performance practice. The Dresdner Musikfestspiele has already been producing new historically informed performances of Wagner's Ring Cycle, with this project taking place between 2023 and 2026.

The Academy will act as the permanent home for this research, which has garnered global interest in recent times. The establishment of the Academy will also allow for the dissemination of the research in practical terms, allowing artists to put the findings into practice through workshops and rehearsals.

"I am delighted for the city of Dresden and the Dresden Music Festival about this generous support!" said Jan Vogler, Artistic Director of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele. "A visionary meeting place for musicians, academics and the public, the Richard Wagner Academy Dresden, can now be built on the most beautiful site in Dresden. This decision inspires me to continue to invest all my energy in the cultural charisma of Dresden as one of the world's leading cities of music."

"We are very pleased about the decision from Berlin and the enormous amount of the proposed funding," added Dirk Hilbert, Dresden's Lord Mayor. "Of course, we will now enter into talks with the Free State of Saxony, without which overall funding is not possible. In view of our own challenges, we need to act with courage and foresight. From an urban development perspective, this decision could be an outstanding milestone for the Königsufer."