Audi Summer Concerts: All ticket sales to be donated to help Ukraine

This year, the Audi Summer Concerts are consciously embracing their cultural mission under special conditions. “Especially now, when a war threatens our European values, we need art and culture more than ever,” said the violinist and festival leader Lisa Batiashvili. "Audi continues to support the people who have fled Ukraine and come here,” says Markus Duesmann, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG. To do so the ticket proceeds from the Audi Summer Concerts would be donated in full – to Ukraine charities that are connected in a special way to the world of music. "We are delighted that the Summer Concerts are taking place on site again this year, bringing people together." With artists from all over Europe, Audi would be able to show how music overcomes borders from June 30 to July 10.

Showing solidarity with an extended program

Two weeks ago, it was announced that the festival will have a concert added to the program at the last minute. On July 6, the International Symphony Orchestra Lviv of the Lviv Philharmonic Society, or INSO Lviv for short, will hold a solidarity concert to benefit the victims of the war in their homeland. The ensemble is based in historic Lviv, considered one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. It was also recently decided that Lisa Batiashvili will join INSO Lviv as a soloist – thus taking a strong stance in support of solidarity. Batiashvili and the orchestra, founded in 1998, will perform in the Ingolstadt City Theater’s festival hall. 

Solidarity with the victims of the war will also be shown by another artist from Eastern Europe. On July 1, the young Georgian “wonder pianist” Tsotne Zedginidze will perform a piano concerto composed by himself under the impressions of the war in Ukraine with the Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt. It will be a world premiere worth waiting for.

Donations to go to music school in Ingolstadt and Karajan academy in Berlin

Audi donates all ticket sales to Ukraine aid organizations. For instance, money will go to the Simon Mayr Singing and Music School (Simon-Mayr-Sing- und Musikschule) in Ingolstadt, which developed a special sponsorship program for up to 30 Ukrainian refugee children for the 2022/23 school year. This project is only possible thanks to AUDI AG’s donation. Another donation recipient is the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy, which has its eye on sponsoring a talented young musician from Ukraine. With its donations, the academy’s training program will be able to host a particularly gifted Ukrainian refugee for two years. Audi has been committed to helping the victims since the start of the war in Ukraine. Following an initial donation of one million euros immediately after the start of the war, the Company donated a further 750,000 euros to aid organizations around Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm in May. Many other aid campaigns around the "Day of Neighbors" on May 20 were added. At the same time, the earnings of a digital art auction went to UN refugee aid.

“Visions of the Future”: A genre-spanning program

The motto of this year’s Audi Summer Concerts is “Visions of the Future”, as its audience this year will encounter a world of music that transcends the current borders between classical, jazz and pop. “At nearly every concert, we dare to try something new – something that allows us to hear and experience classical music differently,” Batiashvili said about her approach. To that end, her program includes representatives of other genres in addition to classical stars like the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and her husband, Sir Simon Rattle; the “Stradivari legends” of the Goldmund Quartet; and famous orchestras like the Munich Philharmonic and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. At one concert on the Audi premises, the Beka Gochiashvili Trio – consisting of piano, bass and drums – will play top-class jazz. At the “Future Sounds” open-air concert, the Audi Philharmonic Wind Orchestra will play a potpourri of science fiction film classics, and the festival will end in the Ingolstadt City Theater on July 10 with a live electric session that creates an energetic fusion between electronic and classical music.