Iván Fischer is founder and Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Principal Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C.

The partnership between Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra has proved to be one of the greatest success stories in the past 25 years of classical music. Fischer introduced several reforms, developed intense rehearsal methods for the musicians, emphasizing chamber music and creative work for each orchestra member.

Intense international touring and a series of acclaimed recordings for Philips Classics, later for Channel Classics have contributed to Iván Fischer's reputation as one of the world's most visionary and successful orchestra leaders. He has developed and introduced new types of concerts, "cocoa-concerts" for young children, "surprise" concerts where the programme is not announced, "one forint concerts" where he talks to the audience, open-air concerts in Budapest attracting tens of thousands of people, as well as concert opera performances applying scenic elements. He has founded several festivals, including a summer festival in Budapest on baroque music and the Budapest Mahlerfest which is also a forum for commissioning and presenting new music works.

As a guest conductor Fischer works with the finest symphony orchestras of the world. He has been invited to the Berlin Philharmonic more than ten times, he leads every year two weeks of programs with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra where his last, highly acclaimed project was in April 2009 Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8. Besides his contract with the NSO of Washington, he works regularly with leading US symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Earlier a regular guest in major opera houses of the world, and music director of Kent Opera and Lyon Opera, his opera productions often attract international attention. His Magic Flute in the Opera of Paris can be regularly seen on Mezzo Television, his Cosi fan tutte conducted at the 2006 Glyndebourne Festival is a huge success also on DVD. His numerous recordings have won several prestigious international prizes.

Iván Fischer studied piano, violin, cello and composition in Budapest, continuing his education in Vienna where he was in Hans Swarowsky's conducting class. He also studied intensively early music and was for two years Nikolaus Harnoncourt's assistant. Recently he has been also active as a composer: his works have been performed in Holland, Hungary, Germany and Austria.

Mr. Fischer is a founder of the Hungarian Mahler Society, and Patron of the British Kodály Academy. He received the Golden Medal Award from the President of the Republic of Hungary, and the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum for his services to help international cultural relations. The French Government named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2006 he was honored with the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's most prestigious arts award. He is honorary citizen of Budapest and Ambassador of Hungarian Culture.

Dejan Lazic:

Dejan Lazic was born in 1977 in Zagreb, Croatia, and grew up in Salzburg where he studied at the Mozarteum. A versatile artist, he plays both the clarinet and the piano (on his first CD recorded at the age of 13 he played the solo part of both Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and of Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 447). As a soloist he has appeared at major venues across Europe, America and increasingly the Far East. Highlights this season include recitals at New York Lincoln Center, Amsterdam Concertgebouw and the Schleswig Holstein Festival.

Alongside his solo career, Dejan Lazic is also a passionate chamber musician and shares a long-standing duo partnership with cellist Pieter Wispelwey. Dejan records for Channel Classics where his latest recording of Schubert’s sonata D960 and his earlier Beethoven Piano Concerto No 2 have earned rave reviews. With cellist Pieter Wispelwey he has recently released a recording of the complete works for Cello and Piano by Beethoven, which was selected by the New York Times as one of 2005 most notable releases. The New York Times hailed his performance as “full of poetic, shapely phrasing and vivid dynamic effects that made this music sound fresh, spontaneous and impassioned”.

About the pieces:

The history of Brahms’ Piano Concerto in D minor is rather unusual. Following Schumann’s advice Brahms started composing a symphony in 1858: the scores were for two pianos, he left instrumentation for later. During the orchestration, it turned out that leaving out the piano is not possible; therefore, Brahms rewrote the piece as a piano concerto. The movement of the funeral march did not fit into the piano concerto; this was used in Brahms’ German Requiem. The piece characteristic of the composer's “Sturm und Drang” period was premiered in 1859 in Hanover under the baton of Joseph Joachim and was a big failure. It is possible that the German audience was surprised by the extravagance of the piece or maybe along with Liszt’s piano concertos it seemed a little dull, puritanically simple. It took a long time to find its place in concert repertoire along with those popular concertos, which are frequently played. (Last BFO performance August 22, 2006, Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Great Britain; soloist Richard Goode, conductor Ivan Fischer)

Bartók wrote the Romanian Dance (Op.8a) between 1909 and 1910 on a piano. He rewrote the first dance to an orchestra for a concert held February 12, 1911. The extremely positive reviews of the premier describe the piece as a brilliantly orchestrated, bizarrely harmonized and orgiastic finished. The audience welcomed the piece with overwhelmed enthusiasm so the orchestra needed to repeat it. According to Bartók’s statement in 1931, although the piece has Romanian folk inspiration the composer worked off his own themes. (Last BFO performance December 20, 1997, Academy of Music, Budapest, conductor Ivan Fischer)

The Concerto is Bartók’s first work, which he composed during his American emigration after four years of silence. The title refers to a specific genre of baroque music, which contrasts different musical instruments and their groups and leads them to contest. It was completed within two months in surprising speed but the premier was a year later: Serge Koussevitzky conducted it in December 1944 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. “The Concerto is a summarizing piece; like Mozart’s Magic Flute. It affiliates age, era and creator in an unusual harmony. Its perfect closeness and its poetry, which cannot be carry on, marks the end of life (…) the year 1943 gives the key to the message of Concerto. This piece has a message put in words as well, which sets it apart from neoclassical compositions. Bartók – contrary of his usual practice – deals not only with musical questions but refers to the concept of the work: ‘The mood of the piece – despite of the funny second movement – entirely effects the gradual transition from the darkness of the funeral wailing song of the first and third movement to the life-affirmation of the last one.” (András Batta) (Last BFO performance January 18, 2007 Liederhalle, Stuttgart, Germany, conductor Ivan Fischer)