Holland Festival 2026: What to See and Why It Matters

The 79th Holland Festival runs from June 3 to 28, 2026, with 30 productions across 23 locations in Amsterdam and Heerlen. It is the Netherlands' biggest international performing arts festival, and 2026 is the year it pulls in some of the most interesting names working in music, theatre, and live performance right now. This guide picks eight productions worth planning your June around. Explore the festival on Outhere and discover more cultural events happening across the Netherlands this month.

The 2026 edition is shaped by associate artist Hildur Guðnadóttir, the Icelandic composer who won the Academy Award for Joker and wrote the score for HBO's Chernobyl. She appears in four different formats across the programme, from a free outdoor brass concert in Westerpark to a single night with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra at the Concertgebouw. Around her, the festival lines up a Brazilian courtroom adaptation of Ibsen starring Narcos actor Wagner Moura, a UK drill artist performing inside a former prison, a Kurdish-language opera, and a five-hour immersive ritual with no seats and no fixed boundary between performer and audience.

A two-part opening night by Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo. Audiences follow an app-guided orchestral walk through Amsterdam, with sound layered into specific city locations, then converge on Carré for a live performance.

The opening night of any festival sends a signal. Holland Festival's choice for 2026 is a piece of public, mobile composition that asks the audience to move through the city instead of sitting still. That choice frames the whole programme.

A single-evening concert with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra performing Hildur Guðnadóttir's film music alongside works by Kaija Saariaho, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Arvo Pärt.

Most people know Hildur Guðnadóttir from Joker or Chernobyl but have never seen her music performed by a full symphony orchestra in a hall built for it. The Concertgebouw is one of the best-sounding rooms in Europe, and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra is her home ensemble.

If you only catch one concert from her residency, this is it. The festival also includes a separate live performance of her Chernobyl score and the multidisciplinary Where To From with light artist Theresa Baumgartner, so the residency rewards multiple bookings.

A free outdoor brass concert composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir, performed in Westerpark. No ticket, no booking, no formal seating.

It is the same composer playing the Concertgebouw, in the same festival, performed by brass players in an open park, free to attend

A choreographed performance by UK drill and post-punk artist Blackhaine, performed by a cast inside the former Bijlmerbajes prison in Amsterdam Zuidoost. This is one of the few times you will get to be inside the Bijlmerbajes for a performance of this scale. If you follow alternative music or post-punk performance, this is the booking of the festival.

A live performance by Inuit Canadian throat-singer Tanya Tagaq, based on her memoir Split Tooth. The work uses experimental vocal techniques to echo Arctic landscapes, colonial history, and personal memory.

Tagaq's work sits between music, literature, and political testimony. Putting her on the Muziekgebouw stage frames Inuit vocal tradition not as ethnography but as contemporary art with a sharp political edge.

A courtroom adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, directed by Brazilian theatre-maker Christiane Jatahy and starring Narcos actor Wagner Moura.

Jatahy is one of the most internationally programmed directors working today, and Moura's profile gives this production a draw beyond regular theatre audiences.

A Kurdish-language opera by Dutch-Kurdish singer Naaz and composer Huba de Graaff, sung in Sorani Kurdish. The work is inspired by the slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" (woman, life, freedom) and uses voice and electronics to ask what freedom looks like in 2026.

Opera in Sorani Kurdish is rare on any European stage. Bringing Naaz, a contemporary pop voice with a steady Dutch following, into an opera composition is a deliberate bridge between commercial Dutch pop and experimental classical music.

This is a small-venue production, and Frascati's intimacy is part of the design. Book early. If you have followed Naaz's pop work, the shift in register is the reason to go.

A five-hour immersive performance by Dutch collective Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot with Jef Van Gestel, at RAUM on the Marineterrein. No fixed seating, no boundary between performer and audience, described by the makers as queerrave, collective ritual, and anarchist playground.

The five-hour length is the form that lets the work do what it is trying to do, with drag, transformation, and body autonomy as the core themes.

Wear something you can move in. Plan to stay the whole time, or do not bother.

The Holland Festival is the moment Amsterdam operates at the same level as Edinburgh, Avignon, and Wiener Festwochen. Explore the full Holland Festival 2026 programme, and see what else is happening across Amsterdam and the wider Netherlands this June.

For more context, read our related guides: "June in Amsterdam: Holland Festival and a City in Full Bloom".

Outhere is a platform that helps people discover arts, culture, and experiences worldwide, from major festivals to small venue nights. Browse the guide, save what you want to see, and plan your June around the work that matters to you.