The Festival was founded in 2001 by British musicians Emily Segal and Peter Selwyn, with singer Frances Pappas, actor Gero Nievelstein and administrator Dorle Messerer Schmid. Since 2001 over 150 singers and musicians from 25 countries have appeared in concerts and operas in venues around the city, including the 11th-century Kaiserburg Castle, Hitler‘s Colosseum (The Rape of Lucretia, Owen Wingrave), Sebalduskirche (Turn of the Screw) and Nuremberg Zoo (Noye’s Fludde).

Performers have included Emily Beynon, James Bowman, Allan Clayton, Elizabeth Kenny, Mark Padmore, Christopher Purves, Steven Stirling, Marianne Thorsen and Roderick Williams. One of the Festival‘s original aims was the introduction of unfamiliar British works to a German audience, and with the support of the Britten Estate the Festival has given the first Nuremberg performances of several of Britten’s chamber operas as well as the complete Britten and Tippett song cycles. Commissions include a community opera by Matthew King (das babylonexperiment, 2008), a dance opera by Stefan Hakenberg (Schau nicht zurück Orfeo, 2010) and an oboe quintet by John Woolrich (2003). The Festival has given two concerts at Wigmore Hall and was co-partner in Jonathan Dove’s cantata about the Holocaust (Hear Our Voice).