Thirty years after its founding, the Heidelberg Spring Music Festival will have a new artistic director. The festival's shareholders – the Heidelberg Spring Music Foundation and the City of Heidelberg – selected Kian Jazdi for the position, as the organizers announced on Thursday. The cultural manager, musician, and music educator will assume the role on October 1, 2027.

Kian Jazdi

Founding artistic director Thorsten Schmidt will then concentrate on his work as chairman of the board of the foundation, which, alongside the city, has been the majority shareholder of the festival since summer 2026. Jazdi, as the designated artistic director, will begin planning the 2027/28 festival season immediately. He will be joined by Marlene Brüggen, currently with the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, as program director.

Schmidt said that Jazdi was a visionary figure they had gained for the Heidelberg Spring Festival. "He not only stands for artistic excellence, but is also passionately committed to what the Heidelberg Spring Festival has stood for for 30 years: namely, always understanding festival work within the context of social relevance." He added that Jazdi was an artistic director "to whom I gladly and with complete confidence entrust my work.".

Jazdi emphasized that he was aware of the responsibility that came with it. The Heidelberg Spring Festival is "a place where music fosters community and addresses issues of our time. Thorsten Schmidt has laid an extraordinary foundation for this over three decades."

Born in 1991 near Stuttgart, Jazdi studied music education and mathematics in Karlsruhe. Since 2017, he has worked for cultural institutions both in Germany and abroad. From 2019 to 2022, he was the musical director and project manager of the Al-Farabi Music Academy in Berlin, which brings together children and young people from diverse backgrounds through classical music. In 2022, he co-founded the Liedstadt Festival with Julian Prégardien and Cate Pisaroni, where he serves as artistic co-director and managing director. Jazdi is a member of the jury for the Elbe Culture Fund of the Hamburg Authority for Culture and Media and of the advisory board of the Young Ears Network. He teaches "Leading & Guiding" in the Master's program in Contemporary Arts Practice at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

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