Beethoven Summit London ’26 is a four-day festival and international conference devoted to exploring Beethoven’s music through performance alongside the latest research in historical practice. The Summit brings together performers, scholars, and music lovers to celebrate and enrich our understanding of Beethoven’s work through historically informed performances, open dialogue, and shared insights from recent scholarship. Our goal is to move closer to the sound world Beethoven himself imagined, deepening both our appreciation and enjoyment of his creative genius.

The Summit will feature performances on period instruments, conversations between world-leading scholars and performers, and interactive panels that bridge research and performance. By connecting current research with live performance, the Summit explores how evolving scholarship continues to influence interpretation and inspire fresh approaches to Beethoven’s music. Beethoven’s uncompromising spirit, especially his willingness to reimagine musical form, expression, and sound, embodies the very idea of artistic maverick that the Summit Series seeks to celebrate. Each year, the Summit will continue this exploration, tracing how bold innovation and informed performance together reveal new ways of hearing the music we thought we knew.

The Summit Series
The Summit Series is an annual, performance-focused /scholarly event, dedicated to composers whose visionary ideas transformed the course of music history. These are the mavericks and iconoclasts who challenged convention and redefined the very parameters of musical thought and expression. Beethoven Summit ’26 marks the first event in this new series devoted to exploring the legacy of musical trailblazers, past and present, by combining the latest research with performances of the highest calibre. Their innovations continue to inspire the art of performance today and are core to the mission of ICCM.