The Festival Orchestra has maintained its experimental spirit, shaping and reshaping orchestral work in the name of constant renewal. Music director Iván Fischer has introduced a number of innovative initiatives: besides the orchestral concerts and a chamber-music series the orchestra hosts a baroque ensemble playing on period instruments, and a contemporary ensemble performing music of our time. Orchestra members chosen in the biannual Sándor Végh competition perform concertos as soloists in the Haydn-Mozart Plus concerts conducted by the BFO’s Principal Guest Conductor, Gábor Takács-Nagy. The initiatives, the unique manner of rehearsing and the new types of concerts have all been subject of various studies all over the world.
The BFO gives over forty concerts in Budapest and regularly performs in other Hungarian cities too and in major musical centres like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Konzerthaus Wien, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, as an ambassador for Hungarian culture. As a special guest, renowned international musical festivals invite the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer back year after year. The BFO regularly performs at the Lucerne, Edinburgh and San Sebastian Festivals, plays at the BBC Proms and the Salzburger Festspiele. The BFO is also a returning guest at New York’s prestigious Mostly Mozart Festival.
The Orchestra has more than 50 recordings; some of them have won prestigious international awards. The first record of the Budapest Festival Orchestra was made at the Christmas premiere concert in 1983. After the record companies of Hungaroton, Quintana and Philips, Channel Classics, known for its exceptional sound quality and uncompromising artistic standard, has been releasing BFO records in the past few years. BFO won 2 Gramophone awards: one for Bartók’ “The Miraculous Mandarin” in 1998 and one for the recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. The Gramophone Awards are one of the most significant honours of the classical record industry often referred to as the Oscars for classical music. The BFO was a Grammy award nominee for 2013 for the recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
The BFO also received the Dutch Music Award in 2006 and in 2008 was voted as 9th best orchestra in the world by leading music critics.
