Peter de Grote Festival becomes Aurora Festival

The new name for the Peter de Grote Festival is the Aurora Festival. Aurora is the name of the Roman goddess of the dawn, a symbol for a new beginning. Besides that the Alcides Aurora is a special type of butterfly. The hatching butterfly has been the symbol of the growth and change to a new version of yourself, just as the young talents of the Summer Academy are being transformed into young, professional musicians.

Besides the many positive reactions to the choice to change our name, there were also some who were afraid that the festival would be inclined to the cancel culture: a ban on Russian music and musicians. This is absolutely not the case. In the past centuries a lot of Russian composers and musicians were repressed. Our festival have always given a voice to oppressed composers from Russia and always will, so their voices can be heard. Also in future editions of the festival we will program Russian music, this year also Ukrainian music, we have invited Russian musicians etc. We hope that music will transcend differences and conflicts, and will unite people from all over the world.