PODIUM Festival Esslingen

Back in 2009, two students (of music and medicine) – who also happened to be former members of the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra – had the idea to join together with other young musicians from across Europe to turn an entire city into a podium for classical music for two weeks and create a festival for the 21st century. They intentionally broke with previous conventions and ways of communicating in classical music, established sponsorships between musicians from across Europe and elementary school children from Esslingen, Germany, and attracted a young audience that continued to grow larger and larger. With a team of young people volunteering at different locations, they developed an innovative system for virtually organising and sharing knowledge, which has received multiple awards as a trend-setting model (Community Festival). The project shows the great extent to which an innovative cultural initiative can impact a city and how fascinating it can be for young people to take care of our cultural heritage when we approach it from a different angle.