Festivals & events
Riviera Classic+
- Type
- Classical music festival
- Address
- Salle des Remparts, Place des Anciens-Fossés, 1814 La Tour-de-Peilz
Founded in 2017 by the violinist Serge Charlet, who is its artistic director, Riviera Classic+ is the classical music festival of La Tour-de-Peilz. It “combines artistic exigence, intimacy, accessibility and discovery”: over four days spread across two January weekends, it stages its concerts at the Salle des Remparts, at the Temple and under a marquee on the Place des Terreaux. Alongside the great orchestral and chamber repertoire, the programme makes room for circus accompanied by a live orchestra, interactive concerts for families and contemporary creations. The committee is chaired by Manuel Voirol, with Sylvie Amadio as vice-president. In January 2027 the festival celebrates its tenth anniversary.
Riviera Classic+: classical music at the heart of La Tour-de-Peilz
A young festival born in 2017
While the Vaud Riviera already pulsed to the rhythm of the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Septembre Musical, La Tour-de-Peilz gave itself, in 2017, its own classical gathering. Riviera Classic+ is the work of the violinist Serge Charlet, who serves as its artistic director. On the scale of a small lakeside town, he wanted a festival of human dimensions, where the audience shares the same hall and almost the same breath as the performers.
The festival sums up its ambition in a single phrase: to “combine artistic exigence, intimacy, accessibility and discovery”. The committee behind it is chaired by Manuel Voirol, with Sylvie Amadio as vice-president (official website).
The Salle des Remparts and the Temple, two settings of the old town
The heart of the festival beats at the Salle des Remparts, on the Place des Anciens-Fossés, at the foot of the old town and its castle. It is reached on foot from the station, with a covered car park facing it. The great-repertoire concerts are also given at the Temple de La Tour-de-Peilz, whose acoustics and organ suit sacred and chamber music.
For its most spectacular shows, the festival also raises a marquee on the nearby Place des Terreaux: there classical music leaves the concert hall for the ring. This closeness of the venues, all a few minutes’ walk apart, makes each edition as much a neighbourhood celebration as a festival.
From the quartet to symphonic circus
What sets Riviera Classic+ apart is its refusal to choose between exigence and pleasure. The programme sets the great orchestral and chamber repertoire in dialogue with more unexpected forms: a circus accompanied by a live orchestra, interactive concerts designed for families, contemporary creations. Music remains the guiding thread of a deliberate multidisciplinarity.
On the lakeside-town scale, this openness echoes the boldness that another classical Riviera festival, the Septembre Musical, once allowed itself. Here it aims above all to draw into a concert hall an audience that would not have come of its own accord.
2027: the festival celebrates ten years
In January 2027, Riviera Classic+ blows out ten candles over two weekends, from the 22nd to the 24th and then the 29th to the 31st of January. The first week puts “women in the spotlight”; the second offers a “Symphonic Circus” bringing together fourteen musicians and international circus artists under the marquee on the Place des Terreaux. The broadcaster Jean-Marc Richard is its master of ceremonies.
Ten years after its creation, the festival has become one of the cultural signatures of La Tour-de-Peilz, to the point of placing classical music among the town’s calling cards, alongside its castle and its quays (official website).