Cultural highlights

If you’re interested in culture and the arts, there is so much to enjoy in Canton Solothurn. Prestigious festivals and cultural highlights held in the canton include:

  1. January 2020 marked the 55th edition of the film festival staged by Schweizerische Gesellschaft Solothurner Filmtage, a Solothurn-based organization dedicated to increasing public awareness of Swiss film.
  2. Authors including Alex Capus, Franz Hohler, and Pedro Lenz from Olten take you on audio tours along the path. Discover a wide range of literature from classical and cabaret to poetry slam.
  3. Originally held in Mümliswil from 1999 to 2017, the Classionata music festival now takes place in Solothurn. Thanks to an outstanding infrastructure it can present a variety of music at different venues.
  4. Oltner Kabarett-Tage organizes an annual cabaret festival, supports artists, promotes young cabarettists, and awards the Cornichon, the Swiss cabaret prize. The festival has grown steadily in recent years, attracting large numbers of cabaret fans from all over Switzerland.
  5. Held since 1958, the Triennale Grenchen is the oldest exhibition of print graphic work in the world. It’s based on tradition, but follows the path of innovation.
  6. The Solothurner Literaturtage festival is a forum for contemporary Swiss literature. Here new works forge contacts between writers from all four language regions, the public, the media, and publishers.
  7. On the last weekend of July since 1994, Etziken’s open air festival has hosted the biggest Swiss acts and international artists on two stages.
  8. Since 2009, Bühne Burgäschi has staged open-air operettas close to the lovely lake. The June event alternates between operettas with a large orchestra and chamber operettas, whose contemporary stagings have delighted audiences.
  9. In Sektor 1, the intrepid artistes of Karl’s kühne Gassenschau street theater take the audience through a theatrical extravaganza of dreamlike images, fantastical machines, breathtaking stunts, and high emotion.