On November 1, 2025, Daniel Hope will take over as the newly elected Intendant & Artistic Director of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy. He succeeds Christoph Müller, who will be leaving Gstaad at the end of the 2025 festival after 24 successful years at the helm.

Daniel Hope, also Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and New Century Chamber Orchestra, has focused extensively on directing and curating music festivals and concert series, including at the Savannah Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Philharmonie Essen. He is currently Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche Dresden and President of the Beethoven House in Bonn.

Hope has a long musical connection both to Gstaad and to Yehudi Menuhin. Following a multi-stage and extensive selection process, he was elected unanimously as the new Intendant & Artistic Director by the Board of Directors of the Gstaad Menuhin Festival & Academy on the recommendation of the appointment committee.

Says Hope: 

“I am delighted to have been offered this wonderful opportunity to shape the future together with the festival team. The Gstaad Menuhin Festival was the starting point of my relationship with music: it was here that I had my first ever encounter with classical music as a small child. It was also where I was allowed to turn the pages for the festival artists from the age of 11, and when I finally made my official debut at the festival in August 1992, Yehudi Menuhin himself was sitting in the audience. To summarise: Gstaad is so much a part of my musical DNA that it doesn’t matter where I am in the world. Music and the Bernese Oberland – for me, this is the perfect symbiosis.”

Daniel Hope begins his directorship with the 2026 Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the 70th edition of the festival which is named after its founder, the violinist and humanitarian American violinist, Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999). In July 2024, Hope performs two concerts at this year’s festival in the churches of Saanen and Zweisimmen. 

For more information, visit gstaadmenuhinfestival.ch.