Stars of classical music, theatre, jazz, world and folk to visit Cheltenham for 2026 Music Festival

News just in from Cheltenham Festivals - Cheltenham Music Festival will deliver a bold and diverse programme of world-class music-makers this July, bringing bona fide stars and the latest new voices to burgeoning audiences hungry for inspiring live experiences. Performers will include a star of Succession, Harry and Megan’s favourite cellist, and some of the world’s leading orchestras, musicians and composers this year as part of the 81st Cheltenham Music Festival.

The Festival’s 2026 programme focuses on creating the next chapter of classical music, say its enthusiastic organisers, and on offering audiences of all kinds a taste of the most beautiful, energising music being made today. Its celebration of all things musical runs the gamut, from Mozart and Bach to jazz, folk, African and Indian music, and more.

“Our goal is to bring all kinds of people together to celebrate the exciting future of classical music, in all its amazing and awesome variety!” says the Festival’s Artistic Director, Jack Bazalgette.

Throughout the Festival – which takes place in venues across the town, including for free in some of its best pubs and bars – musicians will play from memory, collaborate and improvise with each other, perform some of the greatest works of classical music ever written.

And they will point towards the future, too, with new pieces, innovative musicians and surprising genres that have never before appeared at the Festival.

What can we expect for Cheltenham Music Festival 2026?

Star-studded stages

Among the top musicians performing will be Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who memorably played cello at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018. He will perform with his sister, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason, in a partnership many will remember from 2015’s series of Britain’s Got Talent. Their exciting performance will include two of the great works for cello and piano by Mendelssohn and Schumann.

The Festival will also be graced by a luminary of the theatre world, when Dame Harriet Walter – fresh from success in Ted Lasso, Succession, and Black Mirror – performs Shakespeare’s Sisters alongside soprano Sophie Bevan and pianist Christopher Glynn. This concert puts Walter’s imagined words of Shakespeare’s under-served women to remarkable musical settings.

In a first for the Festival, the Town Hall stage will be given over in its entirety to a revered folk act, Northumbria’s The Unthanks. Long renowned for their curation of the northern English folk tradition, the widely lauded band will bring a deeply inhabited, and vibrantly complex, musical tradition to Cheltenham.

In a new version of a Festival favourite, Mixtape returns as a collaboration with Squidsoup, an internationally-acclaimed lighting design collective who will turn the Town Hall luminous and immersive as they respond to live performances by Jess Gillam Trio, HVDN Quartet and a host of other ensembles.

 And for the first time Cheltenham will host its very own “Last Night,” with favourites from a raft of canonical greats including Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Malcolm Arnold, all performed by John Wilson’s world-beating Sinfonia of London (“unforgettable excellence” – The Times).

The future of music

There will be space, too, for the next generation of musicians and music fans. The return of the Festival’s renowned Concert for Schools and SEND-focused Relaxed Concert for Schools and Relaxed Concert for Families opens up classical music to all. Alongside a year-round programme of Musicate workshops in schools, the Festival inspires children and young people, up-skills teachers and early-career musicians, and sustains music in schools and beyond all year round.

And a new lease of life for the Festival’s traditional Young Gloucestershire Musician of the Year concert – featuring this year’s winner, Herbie Asquith-Dixon, for the first time at Pittville itself with the Gloucestershire Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven and Bruch.

The BBC New Generation Artists get their turn, too, with performances from Astatine Trio, Hana Chang and Oleg Shebeta-Dragan. New composers can apply to the Festival’s Composer Academy, headed by the award-winning Laura Bowler, to attend a week-long residency and a final showcase concert on the Festival’s second Friday.

New pieces of music feature all across the programme, too: Jasmine Morris, Ben Nobuto, Imogen Davey, Vision String Quartet and Jasdee Singh Dugun will all have new works performed in concerts by Violetta Suvini and Friends, Fantasia Orchestra with Singh Dugun himself, and the Vision String Quartet, who visit from Berlin.

“Awe-inspiring scale”

At the heart of Cheltenham are always several awe-inspiring concerts which emphasise scale and spectacle. The Festival will begin with the engaging Aurora Orchestra performing Mozart’s Jupiter entirely from memory.

“We really want to emphasise the energy and dynamism of classical music,” explains Bazalgette. “When the music stands are removed, the drama in the music really comes to life!”

This emphasis on drama will carry through to a banner performance at Tewkesbury Abbey, where the British Sinfonietta and the South Cotswold Big Sing will perform big works by Brahms, Bruckner and Mahler’s. Elsewhere, Cheltenham Bach Choir will sing the much-loved Verdi’s Requiem.

Inspirational intimacy

Intimacy is also one of Cheltenham’s traditional strengths, and this year will play host to the Festival’s usual offering of peerless chamber music and inspiring soloists – as well as series of free ‘... around town’ concerts in some of Cheltenham’s favourite cosy spots.

Piano features heavily. Georgia’s Mariam Batsashvili interprets Mozart, Schubert and Liszt, while Canada’s Angela Hewitt performs selections from Bach, Schumann and Ravel. In a special treat for Cheltenham, meanwhile, Pavel Kolesnikov will perform Chopin’s Nocturnes 1-21 in full over a 2.5-hour show.

Elsewhere, Dudù Kouate is famous for his mastery of more than 200 instruments, and plays many of them onstage in a single performance, channelling the deep musical heritage of his Senegalese griot forebears. He will perform with the enigmatic Irish folk musician, Shunya. The Jess Gillam Trio will deliver an energetic repertoire of classical, jazz and folk-inspired in the inimitable style of the respected BBC presenter. 

Meanwhile, the remarkable trio Za Górami will offer musical fusions of a different kind, bringing together song, chamber music and jazz in a refreshingly fluid manner. Idrîsî Ensemble return to Cheltenham after a sell-out show last year, bringing their “deeply moving” interpretations of medieval Mediterranean traditions.

“We are building a vibrant, ambitious, outward-looking future for music – full of invention, excitement and passion!” enthuses Bazalgette. “It’s going to be uplifting – come and be inspired with us!”

Discover more festivals in Cheltenham - Guide to Cheltenham Festivals