About the Festival
The inaugural edition of the Paul Juon Music Festival will take place on 19–20 September 2026 at the Salle de la Colombière in Nyon, Switzerland.
For this first edition, the festival brings together an exceptional artistic team: Clémence de Forceville, Benedict Klöckner, Louis Schwizgebel, and Haoran Wang.
The festival is initially dedicated to the Swiss-Russian composer Paul Juon (1872–1940).
Nicknamed the “Russian Brahms” by his classmate Sergei Rachmaninoff, Paul Juon combined lyrical beauty, expressive depth, and remarkable craftsmanship in his music. Like many composers of the early twentieth century, such as Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Maurice Ravel, he developed a highly personal harmonic language that gives his music a distinctive richness and colour. His musical style beautifully bridges the traditions of late Romanticism and the early developments of Modernism.
Paul Juon’s official catalogue comprises 99 opus numbers, representing well over one hundred individual compositions. Yet despite the quality, originality, and accessibility of his work, his music remains rarely performed on today’s international classical music stages.
His life was equally remarkable. Born in Moscow to a Swiss family, Juon studied and worked in several important cultural centres, notably Moscow, Baku, and Berlin. From 1926 onwards, he became increasingly active in Switzerland, a country with which he strongly identified and whose citizenship he later adopted. He spent the final years of his life in Vevey, the hometown of his second wife. Preserving and promoting his music therefore also means preserving an important part of Switzerland’s cultural heritage.
The idea of creating this festival was born from a desire to share this extraordinary musical legacy with a wider audience. Together with the audience of La Côte, the musicians will embark on a journey of rediscovery through Paul Juon’s chamber music, bringing his works back to the concert stage where they belong.
Alongside original compositions, the festival will also present specially prepared arrangements, offering fresh perspectives on his musical legacy and allowing audiences to experience his music in new and engaging ways.
While the festival is initially devoted to Paul Juon, it aims from its very first edition to explore the artistic circles, influences, and musical worlds surrounding his work, creating dialogues between his music and that of his contemporaries and successors.
The Paul Juon Music Festival also seeks to contribute to the cultural life of Nyon and the La Côte region. In a city renowned for its many festivals, the project aspires to strengthen the presence of classical music and create new opportunities for artistic encounters between musicians and audiences.
The ultimate objective is to develop the Paul Juon Music Festival into an internationally recognised classical music festival in the Nyon region, attracting outstanding artists, fostering artistic exchange, and contributing to Switzerland’s cultural landscape while remaining faithful to the spirit of discovery that inspired its creation.
We are delighted to embark on this journey with you and look forward to rediscovering the music of Paul Juon together, bringing his unique artistic voice back to the concert stage and into the hearts of new audiences.
The Paul Juon Music Festival Team
