Iván Fischer

Iván Fischer is a Hungarian conductor born in 1951. In 1983 he co-founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he still leads, and he is known for unusual, theatrical concert ideas. He conducts Brahms and Mendelssohn with the New York Philharmonic in March 2027.

Fischer likes lively, chamber-like clarity, with phrases that breathe and a close balance between strings and winds. In Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music, listen for the flickering fairy scherzo and the famous wedding march. The Brahms concerto is large and stormy, with the piano and orchestra in a tense, shared argument. His concerts sometimes include staging and surprises.

Fischer was born in Budapest and trained in Hungary and Vienna, where he studied conducting. He founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Zoltán Kocsis in 1983 and has led it ever since. He has also held posts with the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin and with orchestras in Europe and the United States, and he has directed opera.