8/21/2010 | Iván Fischer, The Budapest ...

Iván Fischer is founder and Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C.

The partnership between Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra has proved to be one of the greatest success stories in the past 25 years of classical music. Fischer introduced several reforms, developed intense rehearsal methods for the musicians, emphasizing chamber music and creative work for each orchestra member.

Intense international touring and a series of acclaimed recordings for Philips Classics, later for Channel Classics have contributed to Iván Fischer's reputation as one of the world's most visionary and successful orchestra leaders.

He has developed and introduced new types of concerts, "cocoa-concerts" for young children, "surprise" concerts where the programme is not announced, "one forint concerts" where he talks to the audience, open-air concerts in Budapest attracting tens of thousands of people, as well as concert opera performances applying scenic elements. He has founded several festivals, including a summer festival in Budapest on baroque music and the Budapest Mahlerfest which is also a forum for commissioning and presenting new music works.

As a guest conductor Fischer works with the finest symphony orchestras of the world. He has been invited to the Berlin Philharmonic more than ten times, he leads every year two weeks of programs with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra where his last, highly acclaimed project was in April 2009 Beethoven's Symphony No. 8. Besides his contract with the NSO of Washington, he works regularly with leading US symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Born in 1977 in Budapest, he started to play the horn at the age of eight. Between 1995 and 1998 he attended the Teachers' Training College of the Music Academy. In 1998 he was admitted to the Franz Liszt Music Academy where he learned with Ádám Friedrich. He obtained his diploma in 2002. In 1997 he became member of the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera House, where in 1999 he was elected "Artist of the Year". A winner of several international competitions (Iserlohn, Porcia), he was winner of the BFO's Sándor Végh Competition in 2003.

He was born in 1972 in Budapest. Following five years of violin studies in 1985 he started to play the horn. Having finished his secondary school studies at the Béla Bartók Music Secondary School, he was admitted to the Franz Liszt Music Academy of Budapest as a pupil of Imre Magyari and Ádám Friedrich. He obtained his diploma in 1996. Both in 1995 and in 1996 he won first prize at the Debrecen National Brass Competition. Between 1993 and 2001 he was member of the Matáv Symphony Orchestra. Since October 2001 he has been member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

Born into a musical family in Budapest in 1978, his father was a tutor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music and his mother a cellist at the Hungarian State Opera House. Between 1992 and 1996 he was a student of Tibor Beleznay at the Béla Bartók Music Secondary School, and from 1997 a student at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, where he learned with Tibor Tarjáni. He has won prizes at several international competitions (Munich, Markneukirchen, Beijing), and has taken part in master courses run by Peter Damm, Timothy Jones, Frank Lloyd, David Jolley, Eric Terwilliger and Eyal Vilner. He has been a member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra horn section since October 2001.

Zsombor Nagy was born in 1973 in Budapest. Following four years in the Béla Bartók Secondary Music School, in 1992 he was admitted to the prestigious Franz Liszt Academy of Music of Budapest, where his professor was Ádám Friedrich. Still a student of the Academy, he played regularly in different symphonic orchestras of Hungary. In September 2001, following a succesful audition, he became member of the horn section of the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

The orchestra was formed in 1983 by Iván Fischer and Zoltán Kocsis, with musicians "drawn from the cream of Hungary's younger players," as TheTimes of London put it. Their aim, through intensive rehearsals and demanding the highest standards from musicians, was to make the orchestra's initially three or four concerts per year significant events in Hungary's musical life, and to give Budapest a new symphony orchestra of international standing.

Between 1992 and 2000, extending their work to a full season the ensemble operated under the aegis of the Budapest Municipality and the new BFO Foundation, formed by fifteen Hungarian and multinational corporations and banks. From the 2000/2001 season onwards the orchestra is operated by the BFO Foundation, which the Budapest City Council regularly supports under a contract renewable every five years. In 2003 the Ministry of Education and Culture declared the orchestra a national institution supported by the state.

The Festival Orchestra is nowadays not only a vital part of Budapest's music life (usually performing to capacity audiences) but also a frequent and much appreciated guest at the world's most important centres of musical excellence: Salzburg (Summer Festival), Vienna (Musikverein, Konzerthaus), Lucerne (Festival), Montreux, Zürich (Tonhalle), New York (Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall), Chicago, Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl), San Francisco, Montreal, Tokyo (Suntory Hall), Hong-Kong, Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées), Berlin, Munich , Frankfurt (Alte Oper), London (BBC Proms Festival, Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall), Florence (Maggio Musicale), Rome (Accademia di Santa Cecilia), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Madrid, Athens, Copenhagen, Prague (Prague Spring Festival), Brussels (Flamish Festival) and Buenos Aires (Teatro Colon), among others.

After having recorded on Hungaroton, Quintana, Teldec, Decca, Ponty and Berlin Classics, the orchestra signed an exclusive recording contract with Philips Classics in 1996. Its recording of Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin received the Gramophone Award, while Diapason and Le Monde de la Musique chose it as their recording of the year. Recordings of Liszt's Faust Symphony and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra were chosen among the year's five best orchestral discs by Gramophone. In 2003 the BFO signed a cooperation agreement with the label Channel Classics. Their recording of Mahler's Symphony No.6. has been nominated for the Grammy Award, their Mahler 2. has received the Gramophone Award. International critics voted the orchestra in December 2008 among the ten best symphony orchestras of the world.