Why a Gstaad Festival Orchestra?

«I am highly enthusiastic and motivated to define new directions with and for the Menuhin Festival, to make the Festival even more vibrant, unique and exciting. Original productions provide a means to shape – purposefully and directly – the profile and appeal of the Festival, and the instrument of an own orchestra provides a means for projecting the image of the Gstaad Festival throughout the music world. The Gstaad Festival Orchestra unites my two areas of activity in an ideal manner, allowing me to transform my passion for music into tangible projects: the management of an internationally acclaimed orchestra and the design and direction of an international classic festival. A wish has come true in being able to unite these two worlds in the project of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra, and I will do my utmost to create something of artistic significance from which both the Festival as well as the orchestra and musicians will profit. The exclusive projects realized with the Gstaad Festival Orchestra also will represent a great enrichment for the public, the Festival and its whole surroundings. After successful years of development marked by increasing support on the part of audiences, sponsors and artists as well as by heightened interest on the part of the international media and professional associations, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad has reached a stage at which something new can be created and expanded. I think that a music festival should be in constant motion, always in the flow of things.»

Christoph Müller, intendant of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, 2010