The 8th Mahler Festival in Budapest

The new season of the Budapest Festival Orchestra once again opens with the Budapest Mahler Festival. The festival program reflects the revamped strategy of the Orchestra/BFO, which focuses particularly on new, modern music and a young audience.

The event taking place in the Palace of Arts September 5-8 mirrors the revamped strategy of the Orchestra, which focuses particularly on contemporary music and a young audience. This is why at this year's Mahler Festival the audience will not only be entertained with Mahler's Symphony No. 5., but also with Levente Gyöngyösi's Symphony No. 3 (Birth), which – similarly to Mahler – the young composer created based on a personal experience: the work was inspired by the birth of his daughter, Hanga. Tradition at the Budapest Mahler Festival also dictates that the Festival Orchestra invites a Hungarian composer to write a piece for them.

It is no coincidence that Iván Fischer, music director of the Festival Orchestra, described this year's Eighth Mahler Festival as being about children's secrets, their fears and their joys. This is because the second performance at this year's Mahler Festival, Benjamin Britten's children's opera, Noye's Fludde, is primarily addressed at young people, children in particular: the musicians, mostly children, are conducted by György Philipp.

The children performing the opera are all pupils at the Schola Cantorum Budapestiensis led by Tamás Bubnó and János Mezei, and the audience become part of the production during the performance. The Festival Orchestra will donate all the proceeds from the performance on 7 September to the Parafónia Orchestra, which brings the joy of playing music together to young people with mental disabilities.

For more information: http://www.bfz.hu/calendar/months/201209#on_20120905