Iván Fischer
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Iván Fischer (born 20 January 1951 in Budapest) is a Hungarian conductor of Jewish origin. His father Sándor Fischer, his elder brother Adam and his cousin György Fischer were also conductors. Iván Fischer initially studied piano, violin, composition and cello. He was a conducting student of Hans Swarowsky in Vienna, where he also studied cello, and early music, studying and working as assistant to Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
In 1976, Iván Fischer won the Rupert Foundation conducting competition in London. He began thereafter to guest-conduct such British orchestras as the BBC Symphony and to the London Symphony Orchestra, with whom he conducted a world tour in 1982. His US conducting debut was with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1983.
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[edit] Budapest Festival Orchestra
Fischer returned to Hungary in 1983 to found the Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO). Here he introduced new, intense rehearsal methods and an emphasis on chamber music and creative work for each orchestra musician. The success of this new orchestra has won Fischer and the orchestra invitations to music festivals such as Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne and the London Proms. With the BFO, Iván Fischer has introduced new concert formats. His ‘cocoa-concerts’ for children, his public matinées where he talks about the works, his ‘secret concerts’ without an announced programme, and his open air concerts on Hero’s Square have all become popular. By design, the orchestra works 30 weeks per year. In addition, there is an annual competition from within the orchestra for soloist opportunities in concert.[1]
Fischer signed an exclusive recording contract with Philips Classics in 1995 and his Bartok and Liszt recordings with the BFO have won a Gramophone award, Diapason d'Or de l'Annee, four Cles de Telerama, the Arte, MUM and Erasmus prizes. Other recordings include works by Kodaly, Dvorak and Fischer’s own orchestration of Brahms's Hungarian Dances, which combine improvisations from Gypsy musicians with a symphony orchestra. His records feature performances of Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály and Antonín Dvořák with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. His recording of Bartók's ballet The Miraculous Mandarin received the 1998 Gramophone Award in the Orchestral category. From 2004, he started a new partnership with Channel Classics, whose recent releases include Mahler Symphony No. 6 and Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, both with the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
[edit] Other conducting work
As a guest conductor, Iván Fischer appears regularly with such orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischer Rundfunks, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Philadelphia Orchestra in December 2006. He also has a close relationship with the Munich Philharmonic, with whom he will conduct a three year Mahler project starting in December 2007 with Mahler 3. In 2006, he was named a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
In opera, Fischer was music director at Kent Opera in the UK.[2], He was Music Director of the Opera National de Lyon from 2000 to 2003. The Lyon production of Ariadne auf Naxos received the prize of ‘best regional opera production of the year’ given by the Association of French Music Critics. Other work in opera as a guest conductor has included a Mozart cycle in the Vienna State Opera, and productions in Zurich, London, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm and Budapest. He debuted in 2006 at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in a new production of Così fan tutte:
"…this summer's new Cosi fan Tutte represents the closest Glyndebourne has come to Mozartian perfection in quite some time. Nicholas Hytner's wonderfully detailed yet passive production and Iván Fischer's straight-forward conducting impose nothing on the piece, and the result is that Mozart is allowed to speak for himself." – John Allison, The Sunday Telegraph, 28 May 2006
Iván Fischer is a founder of the Hungarian Mahler Society, and the Patron of the British Kodaly 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. In March 2006 he was awarded the Kossuth Prize, Hungary's most prestigious distinction in the domain of the arts.
[edit] Work in the US
In the USA, Fischer held the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for seven years. In 2006, he became Principal Guest Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington. In April 2007, Fischer was named the principal conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (Washington, DC), after Leonard Slatkin steps down as music director in 2008. The position is for two years.[3]
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| Preceded by Christopher Seaman |
Artistic Directors, Music Directors and Principal Conductors, Northern Sinfonia 1979–1982 (with Tamás Vásáry) |
Succeeded by Richard Hickox |
| Preceded by no predecessor |
Music Director, Budapest Festival Orchestra 1983– |
Succeeded by incumbent |
| Preceded by Louis Langrée |
Music Director, Opéra National de Lyon 2000-2003 |
Succeeded by (successor not known) |
