How to Get Here
Verbier is easily accessible by various means of transport.
Venues & Accessibility
Learn more about our performance venues and accessibility.
Where to Stay
Explore available accommodation options in Verbier.
Eat and drink
Explore a selection of places to eat or drink during your visit to Verbier.
Flex pack
20% discount starting 7 concerts purchased from the Mainstage programme (excluding Carré Or).
Gift cards
Share your passion for classical music by offering a Verbier Festival gift card (valid until the end of the current edition, i.e. August 3, 2025).
Bagnard
40% discount for permanent residents of Commune de Val de Bagnes (excluding Carré Or and cat. C)
RailAway
The Verbier Festival, in partnership with RailAway, offers you 30 % off your train tickets to Verbier.
Under 35
For adults under 35 years old, for all Mainstage concerts excluding VFJO, Academy, and afternoon church concerts (excluding Carré Or).
Students
For students with student identity card available on all Mainstage concerts (excluding Carré Or, open seating concerts, and VFJO and Academy concerts).
Children
For children under 16 on all Mainstage concerts (excluding Carré Or and Academy concerts).
Combins pass
Attend all evening concerts at Salle des Combins (Carré Or) from the 17th of July 2025 to the 3rd of August 2025. Contact the Ticket Office to buy your Pass.
Ravel 150
Includes Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s two concerts on July 17 2025.
Soloists & Ensembles
The Academy searches the world for the most promising pianists, violinists, violists, cellists and chamber music ensembles of trios and quartets.
Atelier Lyrique
The Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique stands out among professional training programmes by offering a unique blend of opera role and song repertoire studies.
Creative Project Development
The Creative Project Development Residency offers an opportunity to an imaginative and entrepreneurial young artist to develop and workshop an original project.
Audio Recording
The Academy’s Audio Recording Programme offers a unique opportunity to up to three emerging sound engineers to work alongside a professional recording team.
VFJO
The Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra (VFJO) is an international orchestral training programme for young musicians aged 15 to 18.
VFO
The Verbier Festival Orchestra (VFO) is a rite of passage for today’s exceptional young orchestra musicians.
Conducting
The Verbier Festival Conducting Programme offers a stepping stone to emerging artists who are on the verge of leading orchestras at the highest level.
VFCO
The Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra is the Verbier Festival’s worldwide Ambassador.
Le Cinéma
Six bold concerts at Cinéma de Verbier — genre-blurring nights, headline artists, unexpected encounters.
La Chapelle
A candlelit sanctuary for sound. Four intimate concerts—meditative journeys, bold detours, and resonant music.
South
The Festival’s late shift lives here. Four concerts where genres clash, stories unfold, and music dares to go further.
ideaLab
Where music meets ideas. IdeaLab blends concerts and conversation to explore the ‘why’ behind the music.
Storytellers
The Storytellers project offers valuable educational enrichment in primary schools across the canton of Valais.
Music Discovery
Each summer, VF KiDS offers fun and interactive workshops for young children at the Verbier Festival.
Zoo
Dive into a world of imagination through the eyes of VF KiDS.
Ludwig's world
Interactive exhibition for all ages.
The Friends
Music-loving donors supporting the Verbier Festival.
Sponsorship
A partnership built for success.
Patronage
Gifts to the Verbier Festival Foundation.
Legacy Giving
Help us build a sustainable future.
Founder & Director
En 1991, Martin Engstroem put the wheels in motion for what in 1994 would become the Verbier Festival & Academy.
Contact
Our telephone numbers, email and postal addresses, office hours and directory of personnel.

Frans Helmerson

cello
Biography

Swedish cellist Frans Helmerson began his musical training with Guido Vecchi in Gothenburg before moving on to study with Giuseppe Selmi in Rome and William Pleeth in London. Sergiu Celibidache and his mentor Mstislav Rostropovich also played a very influential role in his artistic development. In 1971, he won the renowned Cassado Competition in Florence – the first of many distinctions. Tours have taken him to other countries in Europe as well as to Japan, Russia, South America, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

Frans Helmerson plays with many well-known orchestras and receives outstanding critical acclaim for his concerts and recordings. His recording of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra was acknowledged as the “best recording currently available on the market”. His recording of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No 1 is also highly praised.

Frans Helmerson’s love of chamber music is another important driving force in his musical endeavours. He is a regular guest at the major European festivals, including the Verbier Festival, the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades and the Ravinia Festival, and spent many years as the artistic director of the Umea-Korsholm International Chamber Music Festival. In 2002 he co-founded the Michelangelo String Quartet.

In addition to his career as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor, Frans Helmerson taught for several years as a professor at the conservatories in Cologne and in Madrid. From 2011 to 2016 he has been teaching as a guest professor at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. 2016 saw him gain an additional professorship at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin. Frans Helmerson has been teaching on the Kronberg Academy Study Programmes as a principal professor since 2006. He plays a cello by Stefan-Peter Greiner.


Programme
26 July 2025 09:30
masterclass
HELMERSON / MASTERCLASS CELLO
27 July 2025 09:30
masterclass
HELMERSON / MASTERCLASS CELLO
28 July 2025 09:30
masterclass
HELMERSON / MASTERCLASS CELLO
29 July 2025 19:30
chamber music
RENCONTRES INÉDITES VII
30 July 2025 09:30
masterclass
HELMERSON / MASTERCLASS CELLO
31 July 2025 09:30
masterclass
HELMERSON / MASTERCLASS CELLO
01 August 2025 09:30
masterclass
HELMERSON / MASTERCLASS CELLO

Streaming
17 July 2010 MARTIN FRÖST
Concerts
Martin Fröst performs and conducts Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
17 July 2013 QUATUOR ÉBÈNE, HELMERSON
Concerts
Quatuor Ébène plays Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major – With Frans Helmerson
23 July 2021 Rencontres Inédites III
Concerts
Rencontres Inédites III / Bouchkov – Jansen – Martin – Tamestit – Imai – Helmerson – Kobekina – Mäkelä – Pappano
Verbier Festival
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