Iván Fischer

conductor, Music Director

Conductor, composer, opera director, thinker and educator, anchored in the tradition of the great musical polymaths, Iván Fischer is considered one of the most visionary musicians of our time.

His focus is always the music, and to this end, he has developed several new concert formats and reformed the structure and working method of the symphony orchestra. In the mid-1980s he founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra, where he has since introduced and established numerous innovations. He envisions a pool of musicians serving the community in various combinations and musical styles.

His work as Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra has developed into one of the greatest musical success stories of the last 30 years. With international tours and a series of recordings for Philips Classics and Channel Classics, he has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most celebrated orchestral conductors, for whom tradition and innovation go hand in hand.

He has founded a number of festivals, including the Budapest Mahlerfest, the Bridging Europe festival and the Vicenza Opera Festival. The World Economic Forum presented him with the Crystal Award for his achievements in fostering international cultural relations.

He was principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, the Opéra National de Lyon and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the latter appointing him Conductor Laureate. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra named him Honorary Guest Conductor following many decades of working together. He is a frequent guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Iván Fischer studied the piano, violin and cello in Budapest, before joining the legendary conducting class of Hans Swarowsky in Vienna. Having spent two years as assistant to Nikolaus Harnoncourt, he then launched his international career as winner of the Rupert Foundation conducting competition in London.

After various guest appearances at international opera houses, he founded the Ivan Fischer Opera Company. His staging always sets as its goal an organic unity between music and theatre. IFOC productions, which often spatially connect the instrumentalists and singers, have been received with great acclaim in recent years in New York, Edinburgh, Abu Dhabi, Berlin, Geneva and Budapest.

Iván Fischer has been active as a composer since 2004, writing mostly vocal music with instrumental ensembles. His opera The Red Heifer made headlines across the world; the children’s opera The Gruffalo enjoyed numerous revivals in Berlin; his most frequently performed work, “Eine Deutsch-Jiddische Kantate” has been performed and recorded in several countries.

Iván Fischer is founder of the Hungarian Mahler Society and patron of the British Kodály Academy. The president of the Republic of Hungary awarded him the Gold Medal, and the French government honored him as Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2006 he was decorated with the Hungarian Kossuth Prize, in 2011 with the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award and the Dutch Ovatie Prize, and in 2013 he was named an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Iván Fischer is honorary citizen of Budapest.

Guy Braunstein

Violine

“I always remain who I am. Only the music decides my meaning.” (Guy Braunstein)

A unique blend of virtuosity, restraint and creativity – this is what violinist, conductor and composer Guy Braunstein stands for. Like few others, he not only knows how to convince audiences with his music, but also how to challenge them: Whether with demanding programmes, sophisticated interpretations or his own works and arrangements – Guy Braunstein aims to surprise and reinvent. And although he can easily be categorised in the “tradition of the great Jewish violinists such as Mischa Elman and Isaac Stern” (Telegraph), for him music lives not only from its own history, but through perpetual renewal, updating and unexpected twists and turns.

Whether as a celebrated soloist who masters the standard repertoire from Bach to Shostakovich with ease, or as a congenial chamber music partner in a wide variety of formations: Guy Braunstein is a guest at the world’s most important music centres and festivals. He has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Berlin Philharmonic. His musical partners include András Schiff, Zubin Mehta, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yefim Bronfman, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Christoph von Dohnányi, Lang Lang, Emmanuel Ax, Andris Nelsons and Semyon Bychkov. Guy Braunstein is also present on the international concert stage as a conductor: he was Conductor and Artist in Residence with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Trondheim Symfoniorkester and works with orchestras such as the Helsinki, Rotterdam and Israel Philharmonic as well as the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season include concerts with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Chamber Soloists and the Copenhagen Phil, in which Guy Braunstein will appear as soloist and conductor. The programmes include his own works such as “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter” and the Rusalka Rhapsody as well as the violin concertos by Elgar, Delius and Haydn.

Guy Braunstein’s greatest and identity-forming passion is arranging and composing: In the romantic tradition of Paganini and Liszt, he brilliantly transcribes musical masterpieces for his own or other instruments and instrumentations and presents operas, chamber music or even songs in a completely new form. In addition to
excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and “Swan Lake”, he has also arranged Puccini arias and Dvořák’s opera “Rusalka”.
In 2023, “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter”, an arrangement of Schönberg’s string sextet “Verklärte Nacht”, celebrated its premiere with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. The violinist is particularly fond of the Beatles’ songs: in addition to Six Variations on “Blackbird” and the arrangements of “A hard day’s night” and “Something”, Guy Braunstein also wrote “Abbey Road Concerto”, a highly virtuoso version of the Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” for solo violin and orchestra.

In 2024, Guy Braunstein will release his own as well as Delius’ Violin Concerto and Vaughan-Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” on Alpha Records in a recording with Alondra de la Parra and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. His 2019 albums “Tchaikovsky Treasures” with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and his own arrangements, “Old Souls” with arrangements of chamber music works by Dvořák, Beethoven, Wolf and Kreisler and “Music of my Heart” (2012) with works by Bloch, Chausson, Brahms, Corelli and others were praised by the international press, as well as his recording of Bruch’s Violin Concerto and the “Scottish Fantasy”, recorded with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ion Marin.

Guy Braunstein grew up in Tel Aviv and began playing the violin at the age of seven. He studied with Chaim Taub and later in New York with Glenn Dicterow and Pinchas Zuckerman and his mentor Isaac Stern. His collaboration with Claudio Abbado in particular is one of Guy Braunstein’s most important influences. In 2000, he became the youngest violinist in the orchestra’s history to take over the position of concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic and helped shape the orchestra for over a decade. He was Artistic Director of the Rolandseck Festival and the clasclas Festival in Galicia.

Guy Braunstein plays a violin made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1679.