Budapest Festival Orchestra

Iván Fis­ch­er made his own dream come true when he found­ed the Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra in 1983 togeth­er with Zoltán Koc­sis.
Thanks to its inno­v­a­tive approach to music and the uncom­pro­mis­ing ded­i­ca­tion of its musi­cians, the BFO has become the youngest ensem­ble to join the world’s top ten sym­pho­ny orches­tras. In addi­tion to Budapest, the orches­tra reg­u­lar­ly per­forms in some of the most impor­tant con­cert venues of the inter­na­tion­al music scene and is also present on inter­na­tion­al stream­ing plat­forms.

Since its incep­tion, the BFO has been rec­og­nized by Gramo­phone, the pres­ti­gious British musi­cal peri­od­i­cal, three times: in 1998 and 2007, the magazine’s pro­fes­sion­al pan­el of judges award­ed the BFO the prize for the best record­ing, while in 2022, thanks to audi­ence votes, it was named Orches­tra of the Year. The BFO’s most con­sid­er­able suc­cess­es are con­nect­ed to Mahler: their record­ing of Sym­pho­ny No. 1 was nom­i­nat­ed for a Gram­my Award in 2013.

As well as record­ing suc­cess­es and acclaimed tours, the BFO has also made a name for itself
inter­na­tion­al­ly with its series of inno­v­a­tive con­certs. The Autism-friend­ly Cocoa Con­certs, the Sur­prise Con­certs – appre­ci­at­ed also at the Proms in Lon­don –, infor­mal Mid­night Music per­for­mances geared towards young adults, open-air con­certs in Budapest, and the free Com­mu­ni­ty Weeks are all unique in their own ways. Anoth­er spe­cial fea­ture of the orches­tra is that its mem­bers reg­u­lar­ly form a choir at their con­certs.
Each year, the BFO, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ivan Fis­ch­er Opera Com­pa­ny, Müpa Budapest, and the Vicen­za Opera Fes­ti­val, also stages an opera pro­duc­tion. The per­for­mances have been invit­ed to the Most­ly Mozart Fes­ti­val in New York, Spo­le­to Fes­ti­val dei Due Mon­di, the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val and the Elbphil­har­monie in Ham­burg; in 2013, the Mar­riage of Figaro led the New York Magazine’s list of the best clas­si­cal music events of the year.

The Vicen­za Opera Fes­ti­val, found­ed by Iván Fis­ch­er, debuted in the fall of 2018 at the Teatro Olimpi­co.
In 2024, the Euro­pean Orches­tra Acad­e­my (EOA) has been found­ed by the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Iván Fis­ch­er, the Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra and the Euro­pean Youth Orches­tra (EUYO).