Discover What Budapest Festival Orchestra Has in Store for the Next Few Months
- 4 Nov 2025 2:58 PM
Although the Budapest Festival Orchestra has just returned from the wonderfully successful Vicenza Opera Festival, rehearsals are already underway for Iván Fischer’s next major concerts at Müpa Budapest.
In addition to Richard Strauss’s grandiose Josephslegende, they will bring you Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, performed by Alina Ibragimova, once a student of Menuhin's for whom playing the violin comes as naturally as breathing.
Let organisers tell you what they have in store over the coming months!
Wrapped in beauty
On November 24 and 25 they invite you to travel with them from the Grand Boulevard of Budapest to the concert hall of an imaginary royal palace: join them for a journey through time spanning from the Baroque to the Romantic period.
For this performance in the Concertino series, János Pilz has chosen works by C. P. E. Bach, Mozart, Handel and Mendelssohn. The soloist of the concert will be flutist Anett Jóföldi, winner on several occasions of the BFO’s in-house Sándor Végh Competition. See you at the Liszt Academy!
Modern sounds spanning continents
Grammy-winning conductor David Robertson and multiple award winner Xavier de Maistre will join the Budapest Festival Orchestra on December 2, 3 and 6.
The French virtuoso of the harp has said he believes Ginastera’s Harp Concerto is very interesting because it goes against the image of the harp as a romantic salon instrument. The orchestral sounds become particularly energetic through pulsating South American rhythms.
In addition to Argentina, the concert will also evoke the sounds of Hungary and Denmark through an entertaining Ligeti piece and an exuberant work by Nielsen. If you believe in Santa, treat yourself to concert tickets for two!
Bach, the arrival
Did you know that Iván Fischer opens each rehearsal of the Budapest Festival Orchestra with a chorale by Bach? This represents an arrival, of sorts; a transformation.
Join them and arrive at one of the apexes of the holiday season through Bach’s Christmas Oratorio; the orchestra will perform four cantatas from the piece on December 26.
In addition to international stars, the BFO will be joined on stage at the Budapest Congress Center by the world-famous Collegium Vocale Gent.
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