WATER AND SOUND

25.7.- 2.8.2025

“A powerful rush of water and music that opens Augsburg to the world.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

The Water & Sound Festival 2025 invites the audience to embark on a musical journey along the rivers of the world. This year’s theme explores the cultural, historical, metaphysical and ecological significance of rivers through an inspiring program of contemporary global music, art installations and thought-provoking panel discussions. From the mighty Amazon to the sacred Ganges, from the Danube to the Euphrates and Tigris, the festival shows how rivers have shaped civilizations, inspire the arts and remain vital lifelines for our planet. Visitors can expect a wide range of musical styles and genres from the current global music scene, reflecting the ever-changing nature of water and rivers. Rivers reveal themselves as powerful symbols of life, movement and the interconnectedness of the global community.

The Water & Sound Festival opens on July 25 at the Parktheater with a concert evening in which pioneering artistic positions in global music can be heard across styles and come into contact with each other. Karolina Cicha & Patrycja Betley (Poland), Didem Basar (Turkey) and Sheherazaad (India | USA) explore the deep symbolism of rivers and water in human culture and history in their music.
Further concerts will take place at Kuhsee (26 July) and Annahof (1 and 2 August), with music from Brazil, the Congo, Catalonia, Cyprus, Zimbabwe and Morocco, among others. Art events such as the Riverbirds project and the waterbird parade, two panels and a keynote speech by Dilip da Cunha will explore rivers as ecological and creative lifelines, metaphysical symbols and cultural spaces of remembrance.

Rivers are, as the British naturalist and author Robert Macfarlane writes, “our oldest singers, our oldest storytellers” – living actors whose stories and voices are linked to our destiny. The Water & Sound Festival 2025 invites you to adopt this perspective and experience rivers as a source of cultural, musical and ecological inspiration.