“I live in Brescia. I try to be here not only in a physical sense, but I also keep up with events and cultural life back home. I keep hitting ‘Like’ as though I was going to attend the upcoming Péter Esterházy-commemoration. And on a daily basis I share Midnight Music news with my students, reminding them to purchase tickets to the concerts we used to attend together. Thankfully, they continue to go without me, and this makes me happy.

But as I write this message, I have tears running down my cheeks: it’s insane just how much one can miss an “institution.” But yes: I do miss the BFO; I miss being a part of it in person, and not just virtually by watching a rehearsal or a streamed performance…

In any event, I have purchased tickets to the Brahms marathon. I will travel home for that one, no matter what happens. Fortunately, it has become somewhat easier to do so today. It is too bad that I can’t return for every BFO concert.

But when I listen to or watch the BFO, I continue to keep track of the musicians one by one, because I have met all of them. Some of them I had known; and then at each concert I discovered someone for myself whom I would search for on their website, watching any short videos of themselves they may have shared. So I consider the musicians personal good friends, and some of them as professional role models, in fact (I, myself, am a musician; when I was a student at the conservatory, I dreamed of one day playing in the BFO). And because of Iván Fischer, I consider him and the orchestra “ambassadors of humanity”…

I know you must receive many such messages, but if I may, I’d like to ask you to share mine with the musicians, too.

They are all important components of my adult life.

❤

With love and best regards,

Ágnes Molnár

Ági continues to live abroad. She will often recommend our concerts to her group of Hungarian-Italian friends. And perhaps we’ll see her at our upcoming Italian concert tour…