The Budapest Festival Orchestra is one of the international music scene’s major success stories, being rated among the top ten orchestras in the world. It is loved by audiences and praised by critics for its intensive and emotionally gripping performances. Iván Fischer, as Music Director, has been directing BFO for more than thirty years now. He has maintained the experimental spirit, shaping and reshaping orchestral work in the name of constant renewal. The Orchestra regularly performs at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Konzerthaus Wien, Concertgebouw Amsterdam or Royal Albert Hall London. BFO has won two Gramophone Awards, was a Grammy award nominee and received the Dutch Music Award twice. In 2014 it was awarded both the Diapason d’Or and Italy’s Toblacher Komponierhäuschen for Best Mahler Recording.

Founder and musical director of BFO, Iván Fischer studied in Vienna, in Hans Swarovsky’s conducting class. As a guest conductor, he regularly works with great American orchestras and leads the Berlin Philharmonic and Concertgebouw Orchestra. Since 2012, he has served as music director for the Konzerthaus in Berlin and chief conductor of the Konzerthaus Orchestra. He is also active as a composer and opera director. In June 2014, his opera entitled The Red Heifer was also presented in Berlin. Besides prestigious international awards (Crystal Prize, Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the British Royal Philharmonic Society Award, the Netherlands’ Ovation Award), and an honorary membership on the British Royal Academy of Music, he won the Kossuth Prize and the Prima Primissima Award.

A concert of the European Capital of Culture Wrocław 2016