Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra

Concerto Budapest is evidently one of the most prolific Hungarian orchestras: it has more than eighty concerts a year with fifty five different concert programmes and is expanding its repertoire by more than twenty five new pieces a year. It definitely showcases the highest number of contemporary pieces in Hungary. It has launched an all-day contemporary music festival, “The Day of
Listening’, which is unique in the European musical scene: it stages fifteen concerts with fifty-three pieces played during a single day and has established a chamber formation to be the ambassador of contemporary music all around the world, the Ligeti Ensemble.

January 2022

The recipient of the Premio Franco Abbiati, Liszt Prize, and Bartók-Pásztory Prize, he was named an Artist of Merit of Hungary and was also nominated for the United Kingdom’s Royal Philharmonic Society Award. His recordings have been awarded the Caecilia Prix (BE), Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Edison Award (NL), Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros (FR), Victoire du Musique (FR), MIDEM Classical Award (FR), Gramophon Award (UK) and Record Academy Award (JP).

András Keller was the Artistic Director of the Arcus Temporum Festival in Pannonhalma between 2004–2010 and has been holding to this position again since 2016. In 2007, he was appointed as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Concerto Budapest, formerly known as the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra. Under his leadership, Concerto Budapest has earned a reputation as one of the most respected Hungarian touring orchestras, annually presenting over sixty concerts in Budapest, in addition to concerts and festival appearances in China, France, Germany, Spain, Poland, Japan, Thailand, South-Korea, Russia and the United States. He recently created a concert film with Concerto Budapest, Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica which won the Winged Golden Lion of the Venice TV Award and the Lovie Award as well.

For the last two decades, András Keller was teaching annually at the Aix-en-Provence Festival and has been a regular guest of Yale University’s Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove. Between 2012-2015, he served as the head of the Chamber Music Department at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Since 2016, he has been teaching at the violin faculty of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, which also appointed him as Béla Bartók International Chair in 2018. In 2021, András Keller was awarded a Kossuth Prize in recognition of his exceptionally valuable artistic career for Hungary, his world-renowned skills as a performing artist, equally dedicated to chamber music and contemporary music, as well as his successful activities as music director, lecturer and organiser of cultural events.

Hewitt’s award-winning cycle for Hyperion Records of all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (The Sunday Times). Her discography also includes albums of Couperin, Rameau, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, Debussy, Chabrier, Ravel, Messiaen and Granados. Her second disc of Scarlatti Sonatas (2017), the penultimate volume of Beethoven Sonatas (2019) and her second recording of Bach’s Six Partitas (2019), all hit the Billboard charts in the USA. An album of Beethoven Variations will be released in autumn 2020. In 2015 she was inducted into Gramophone Magazine’s “Hall of Fame” thanks to her popularity with music lovers around the world.

Conducting from the keyboard, Angela has worked with many of the world’s best chamber orchestras, including those of Salzburg, Zurich, Lucerne, Basel, Stuttgart, Sweden, and the Britten Sinfonia. One recent highlight was her debut in Vienna’s Musikverein, playing and conducting Bach Concertos with the Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra.

Photo credit: Keith Saunders