The Bash: Part I – Göschenen

From the subculture of Swiss hip-hop via folk music to pop, followed by a plunge into the profundity of classical music: some might see this as a tragic tale of how a popular artist can lose his youth, his lightness of being and even everything cool about him! But we adopt a different perspective, and are looking forward to two unique evenings with urban rhythms and orchestral power!

“The Bash” – the Andermatt festival that knows no boundaries – is in 2025 bringing one of Switzerland’s most defining musicians to its stage: Bligg. He’s a Swiss hit machine, and now he’s venturing onto the classical concert podium to meet the Swiss Orchestra under the direction of Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer. Together they’re going to build bridges between classical music, rock, rap and dialect pop. They’ll create a sound that will fuse opposites, combining tradition and modernity in an extraordinary way. At times powerful, at others melancholic, captivating, eruptive and dramatic, but always strikingly new.

The Gotthard region has for centuries been a symbol of connection and transition: a place where North meets South. And it provides a perfect setting for our musical experiments. “The Bash” is in equal parts party, experimental laboratory and an act of collision that stands for innovation and openness. This festival is an experimental space that offers room for new discoveries. The result isn’t pop music with the addition of just a few string instruments, but the eccentric and exciting sum of altogether different worlds.

The first evening, 24 October, puts Bligg’s world centre-stage. In the “Göschenen Show”, this verbal acrobat will be supported by soloists from the Swiss Orchestra who will join Bligg’s band to provide an extra dose of spice. And even though they’ll be playing mostly ballads in which a melancholic, calm tone will predominate, they’ll naturally still include Bligg’s big hits with a classical twist. The second evening, 25 October, will bring Bligg’s first-ever solo performance with a symphony orchestra – without his band. Together with the full Swiss Orchestra under the baton of Lena-Lisa Wüstendörfer, Bligg will perform the “Airolo Show”, in which he will be partnered by the singer Debbie Noelle and his accordionist Monsieur Huber. Impassioned symphonic music and highlights from the classical world will merge with festive, celebratory dialect pop.

Both these concerts will offer up big emotions and plenty of surprises. As always with “The Bash”, they are conceived as a total work of art. But these two very different programmes can also be enjoyed on their own. Whether you want to go the metaphorical “high road” over the Gotthard Pass or the “low road” through the tunnel, either way, the topic for each concert is the same: Beethoven and Bligg, classical and rap, violin solos and wit, pop and Danse Macabre.