MacRae's work, as yet untitled, will have a libretto by poet Simon Armitage. It will be staged by the team of choreographer Emio Greco and director Pieter C. Scholten, the directors of the dance company Emio Greco | PC. The young British conductor Garry Walker will conduct.

Also on the schedule are Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, Ivšn Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and pianists Andršs Schiff and Richard Goode.

The theater program includes productions of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Chekhov's Three Sisters, and a new play by Anthony Neilson.

The complete program for the 2006 festival will be released in March.