The Paxos Festival
The Friends of Paxos's annual music festival on the Ionian island of Paxos, entering its fortieth year in early September 2026. Its September classical concerts are held in the hall and yard of the old elementary school at Loggos.
The Paxos Festival is the Friends of Paxos’s annual music festival on the Ionian island of Paxos, founded in 1986 in the garden of the English resident John Gough, who invited musicians from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London to play there. It enters its fortieth year in 2026. The Paxos Festival Trust was constituted as a registered charity in 1987 for the advancement of education in music. The festival was recognised by the Greek Union of Music and Drama Critics in 2009.
The Friends of Paxos association took over the running of the festival in 2015, the year the programme expanded beyond the September classical fortnight into a wider summer season of jazz, traditional and contemporary music, film, exhibitions, lectures and walks. The September classical concerts — eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century chamber and recital repertoire — remain the core of the programme and are held in the hall and yard of the former elementary school at Loggos. The 2026 early-September dates are to be confirmed with the full programme.