Thursday
September 3, 2026
Tickets can be purchased via the link below each concert/event.
Subject to change without notice
Throughout the festival
Author of the Year: Selma Lagerlöf: Legends of Christ (1904)
Painter of the year: Hilma af Klint (1862 - 1944)
15:00
Reopening of Rued Langgaard Exhibition
HEX! in Quedens Gaard
Speeches and Music
On September 3, the Rued Langgaard Exhibition will reopen with an updated version of the exhibition about the composer at Quedens Gaard in Ribe, under the auspices of Museum Vest.
The exhibition was previously on display at the Old City Hall, which Museum Vest transferred to the Municipality of Esbjerg on January 1 of this year. Since then, the museum has been working to find the right setting for the exhibition, and it has now been found at Quedens Gaard, where Rued Langgaard lived during the final months before his death on July 10, 1952. This gives the public the opportunity to experience the story of Langgaard’s music, life, and connection to Ribe right where part of that history unfolded.
At the opening, there will be speeches by Merete Jankowski, director of Museum Vest, and Esben Tange, festival director.
Music: Duo Dybfølt plays their own arrangements of Rued Langgaard
Admission to the exhibition is free for guests with a festival pass during the festival.
At 16:30
Festival opening - Domkirkepladsen sings
Ribe Cathedral Square
At the Rued Langgaard Festival's traditional opening concert, everyone is invited to sing along as some of the most beautiful Swedish choral classics are performed.
With Langgaard's Summer Vacation events in Blekinge, we also experience how it can all just get too much when the coziness takes over at a Swedish coffee table. The good mood is restored, however, when dancing is played later.
Program:
Jonas Hunt: Langgaard-Fanfare (2024) over The Great Master comes BVN 175 (2´). Arrangement for brass players.
Opening speech by Hans Wallmark, Swedish Ambassador to Denmark
Rued Langgaard: From Summer Vacation in Blekinge BVN 123 (1916)
- Coffee Reps and Resignation
- Swedish
- Evening with Dance (vocalize in da capo)
Arrangement for choir and brass by Jonas Hunt.
A wondrous journey through Sweden. By Esben Tange
Swedish potpourri
- Alas, Värmeland, you beautiful one (Anders Fryxell)
- Carl Michael Bellman: Butterfly winged visible on Haga
- Benny Andersen and Bjørn Ulvæus - text Cornelis Vreesvijk: The Song of the Eighteen Swans
- Birger Sjöberg: The first time I saw you
Choir and brass arrangements by Jonas Hunt.
- Hugo Alfvén: Uti vår hage (Swedish folk song)
- Hugo Alfvén: Flowers of Joy (Swedish folk song)
For Kor a cappella
- Rued Langgaard: Minder fra Langelinie Festmarch BVN 220 (1933) (4') (arr. Mogens Andresen)
- Rued Langgaard: The Polar Star BVN 196 (1926/1948) (6')
For brass players.
- The folk tale Queen Dagmar lies ill in Ribe.
For children's choirs, boys' choirs, girls' choirs, youth choirs, men's choirs, women's choirs, adult choirs, folk choirs and marching bands.
Arrangement by Rued Langgaard, Benjamin Friis Nielsen and Lasse Toft Eriksen (4')
Cast:
- Youth Choir Aarhus U
- Ribe Girls Choir, Youth Choir and Chamber Choir
- Festival choir with singers from South and Southwest Jutland choirs and folk choirs
- DKDM Brass
- Conductors: Jesper Juul Windahl, Jonas Hunt and (Peter Hvas Thomsen).
Free access
Choir events can be found here Domkirkepladsen Synger
19.00
Swedish music in brief
Langgaard Hall
Lectures
Swedish music is not dominated by one great composer, which is perhaps why it has been possible for others to develop on their own terms. This applies to Elfrida Andrée and Ture Rangström, who we portray at this year's Rued Langgaard Festival.
Lecture by Gabriella Bergman, ensemble director of Esbjerg Ensemble.
8:00 p.m.
Dora and Rued's Symphony
Sct. Catharinæ Church
Music performance
Dora From was the love of Rued Langgaard's life, and the feelings were mutual even though they never met.
Join us in the spa town of Kyrkhult in Blekinge and the landmark meeting between Dora and Rued and the aftermath in Copenhagen, where Dora was written into Symphony No. 2 Vaarbrud in red ink.
Rued and Dora's meeting in the summer of 1913 changed them both and has since become a main track in Rued Langgaard's music.
The production premiered at the Rued Langgaard Festival in 2024. The current version has been revised by Lotte Andersen, Signe Hørmann Sørensen, and Esben Tange, with a focus on the landmark events of 1913.
Dora - Summer 1913 - a musical performance about Rued Langgaard's great love (45')
Rollout of version 2026.
Josefine Weber Hansen: Langgaard’s Fantasy on Rued Langgaard’s *Ved Kyrkhult Kirke* ( 2025)
Rued Langgaard:
- “Dora Theme” from Symphony No. 2, *Vårbrud* ( 1912–14)
- "Sun Glint, Fluttering Flag from Summer" ( Rued Langgaard) BVN 139 (1917)
- An Evening of Dance from " Summer Vacation in Blekinge," BVN 124 (1916)
- The Air Is Cooled by "Thunder and Splash" from *Summer* ( Rued Langgaard)
- "Gleich und Gleich" from *Lieder von Goethe*, BVN 60 (1913)
- Red Hawthorn from *Blomstervignetter* BVN 56 (1913)
- Excerpt from *Efteraarsengel* from *Vandvidsfantasi* BVN 327 (1947)
- "Erinnerung" from " Lieder von Goethe"
- Arrangement of “Behind the Wall, the Little Roses Grow” from *Rosengaardsviser* BVN 164 (1919) by Josefine Weber Hansen
- "Summer Whisper" from *Gitanjali Hymns*, BVN 149 (1918)
- In May (Emil Ritterhaus) BVN 50 (1911)
Cast and crew
Dora: Lotte Andersen
Signe Asmussen, soprano
Berit Johansen Tange, piano
Josefine Weber Hansen, viola and vocals
Director: Signe Hørmann Sørensen
Visual staging: Lene Juhl
Concept: Esben Tange
Pause
Rued Langgaard: Symphony No. 2 Spring Awakening
in arrangement by Stefan Diaconu for Esbjerg Ensemble and accordion (37'). Utilization.
- Allegro con anima
- Lento religioso quasi adagio
- Molto con moto (Emil Rittershaus)
(Louise McClelland), Soprano
Esbjerg Ensemble with guests
Ratoi Radu, accordion
Tba, double bass
Visual staging: Lene Juhl
22:30
Messis
Ribe Cathedral
Rued Langgaard's great organ drama.
In the first evening of his grand organ drama *Messis* , Rued Langgaard expresses hopes for the Second Coming of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven, before we draw near, toward the end, to the dramatic events at Golgotha on Good Friday.
Messis (Time of Harvest) (40’)
First Part of *Drama for Organ in Three Evenings*, BVN 228 (1932–37)
- The cry (over the chorale Zion's Watchman raises his voice)
- Foolish!
- Autumn Time
- The Crucifixion
Cast:
- Torben Krebs, organ
- Singers from Aarhus U and Ribe Youth Choir
- Conductor: Jonas Hunt.
- Visual staging: Lene Juhl
Day program 2026
Rued Langgard Festival in Ribe, September 3-6 (public early May 2026)
Thursday
Fridays
SATURDAY
Sunday
Venues
Cast and crew
What's new
The festival is supported by
Generous Foundations, Sponsors and Cultural Institutions
