The exceptional artist is celebrating her anniversary year with her own series of contemporary music recordings on Alpha Classics, a major retrospective on Deutsche Grammophon, commissioned works, benefit concerts and concerts at historic locations from her career.
Five decades on the world’s great stages – and no sign of slowing down: in 2026 and 2027, Anne-Sophie Mutter will celebrate her extraordinary stage anniversary with an artistic programme that focuses on the future. For almost half a century, the four-time GRAMMY® winner has been a driving force in international music life. As one of the most important German artists of our time, she has inspired numerous composers to write new works: Krzysztof Penderecki and Sofia Gubaidulina wrote works for her, as did John Williams and Max Richter. This has already resulted in 34 works and arrangements composed especially for her. An inspiration to entire generations of musicians and a tireless questioner of the classical repertoire, Anne-Sophie Mutter is an artist of new beginnings: curious, daring and open to what music can be today and tomorrow.
A new series of recordings in collaboration with Alpha Classics: a focus on contemporary music
Anne-Sophie Mutter is launching her own series, ASM Forte Forward, devoted to the music of our time. Between 2026 and 2028, four new recordings will be released on the Alpha Classics label, exclusively featuring contemporary works written for her. Working alongside musical friends – including both current and former scholarship recipients of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation – this series also marks a new chapter in Mutter’s career: for the first time, she is producing the recordings herself.
- The first release, East Meets West, will be released on 27 March 2026 and includes works by Aftab Darvishi, Unsuk Chin, Jörg Widmann and Thomas Adès.
- The second album, American Tunes #1, features works by André Previn and Sebastian Currier. It will be released in August 2026, coinciding with Mutter’s jubilee concert at the Lucerne Festival.
The collaboration with Alpha Classics expands Mutter’s artistic radius and complements her decades-long partnership with Deutsche Grammophon. Both worlds enrich each other – independent artistic freedom and long-term continuity. “With Alpha Classics, I am opening up new avenues for myself and my foundation. I am delighted that Alpha Classics is creating a forum for my new series, ASM Forte Forward, which stands for courage, independence and openness to new ideas. These are values that I would like to pass on to the next generation,” says Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Deutsche Grammophon: “The Nature of Anne-Sophie Mutter” – a curation of her discography
At the same time, Deutsche Grammophon is marking the anniversary with a comprehensive catalogue initiative spanning 40 years of collaboration, tracing the course of her career: reissues of iconic recordings and a series of digital albums curated by Anne-Sophie Mutter paint a panorama of her artistic development – from her early recordings under Herbert von Karajan to her most recent recordings.
At the beginning of February, Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first recording, made in 1978, Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 3 & 5 with the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan, will be released as a reissue in the audiophile vinyl series “The Original Source Series.” This series presents outstanding recordings from the 1970s in a whole new sound quality.
A series of digital albums, personally curated by Anne-Sophie Mutter, will be released at irregular intervals in 2026 and 2027: Each album will focus on a city with which Anne-Sophie Mutter has had outstanding musical encounters, concerts and recordings. We will follow the artist “around the globe,” starting in February 2026 with the album “Anne-Sophie Mutter & London” and travelling via Berlin, Lucerne, Salzburg and Vienna to Tokyo and New York.
Furthermore, STAGE+, Deutsche Grammophon’s streaming service, celebrates Anne-Sophie Mutter’s outstanding artistic achievements with an extensive selection of video-on-demand content (exclusive interviews, concerts, documentaries) covering her work with Herbert von Karajan in the early 1980s and her recent collaborations with film composer John Williams.
Lucerne and Salzburg – two fixed stars in the stage anniversary
The anniversary takes Anne-Sophie Mutter back to places that have shaped her career. At the Lucerne Festival, where her international stage career began in 1976, she will perform contemporary works as well as great classics from her repertoire next year. In 2027, she plans to return to Salzburg, where she made her debut in 1977 and began her groundbreaking friendship with Herbert von Karajan. The anniversary year will be accompanied by numerous other international concerts showcasing the diversity of her repertoire and her commitment to contemporary music.
Her humanitarian commitment will also be part of her stage anniversary: on 12 May 2026, Anne-Sophie Mutter will play a benefit concert for Doctors Without Borders in Dresden. On 15 June 2026, she will perform with the Berlin Baroque Soloists at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in aid of Welthungerhilfe.
An anniversary with a view to the future – composition commissions & world premieres
In 2027, the anniversary year will continue with further highlights – including world premieres of newly commissioned works by Sebastian Currier and Golfam Khayam. More information on this will be announced in the summer of 2027.
An anniversary can be a retrospective – or a starting point. For Anne-Sophie Mutter, it is the latter. She is using this moment to break new ground: as a soloist, mentor, producer and catalyst. “Music opens up a space that we can all enter, no matter where we come from. It invites us to come closer to one another, to listen and to feel a genuine connection. The fact that music creates this dialogue and brings us together makes it one of the most beautiful and important forces of our time,” explains Anne-Sophie Mutter.
