Budapest Festival Orchestra Makes Gramophone Top 10 List

Gramophone compiled the list of the world's ten best orchestras based on the opinions of its editors in Europe and in Asia, as well as of critics that write for such well known newspapers as The Los Angeles Times, Die Presse, De Telegraaph, Die Welt and LeMonde. Other orchestras on the top ten list were the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra of St Petersburg and the Dresden State Orchestra.

 

"To everybody who thinks that one can't come from Hungary and reach a level of international quality because the environment in the country makes it impossible, I say: the ice is melting. There will come a time when quality will become the most important view in Hungary too, and then we will move toward the international system of values," Budapest Festival musical director Iván Fischer said about the orchestra's acknowledgement by Gramophone.

 

The inclusion on the Gramophone list made a perfect present for the orchestra's 25^th birthday. The orchestra will play a special surprise concert on at the Liszt Music Academy December 26 - 25 years to the day since the orchestra's first concert, and at the same venue too. Orchestra director Tamás Körner likens the concert to a birthday party. Party gifts will be a violin-shaped pen drive with 25 short films documenting the orchestras first quarter century.

 

Minister of Education and Culture István Hiller praised the Budapest Festival Orchestra for making a significant contribution to shaping the country's image. He said the orchestra would play a special concert in New York's Carnegie Hall on January 24 to launch the Hungarian cultural season there.