Róbert Farkas, Chief Conductor
I am delighted to welcome the audience of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra!
It has always been a great pleasure to conduct this outstanding orchestra and it is an honour to be its principal conductor for the second year. With the upcoming concert season, we pay tribute to Vienna's history as a melting pot of diversity, and to the great composers associated with the city. Vienna's cultural life has been enriched by composers of the most diverse origins: Mozart, born in Salzburg, Beethoven, born in Bonn, Brahms, born in Hamburg, Mahler, with Czech and Austrian roots, Richard Strauss, born in Bavaria, Schoenberg, with a Czech mother and a Hungarian father, and our own Franz Liszt, born in Hungary. The list goes on with this season's performers, including Elisabeth Leonskaja from Georgia and István Várdai from Pécs, both of whom call the Austrian capital their second home.
Naturally, we cannot leave out Schubert, an excellent model of the Viennese spirit, whose achingly beautiful and melancholic works include the grand Symphony No. 9 and Symphony No. 4, which he wrote at the age of 19. The latter is also known as the „Tragic” Symphony, in which the influence of three great figures of the Viennese Classicism can be noticed: the influence of Haydn and the 'Sturm und Drang' movement of the Enlightenment in the introduction, of Beethoven at the beginning of the Allegro and of Mozart in the Lento movement.
The programme includes a violin concerto by another Viennese composer, Alban Berg, written in memory of an angel (Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler from his second marriage, who died young). Brahms and Tchaikovsky must be part of this ’Viennese season’, since the Zum Roten Igel, a favourite restaurant of many of the city’s musicians, commemorates the only meeting between the two composers. Budapest did not fall behind Vienna, as it was a significant event of the era that while the most renowned conductors conducted foreign works at the Opera House, Franz Liszt established the center of Hungarian music, the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. To honour this significant event in Hungarian musical culture, we are paying tribute with works by Dubrovay and Eötvös, as well as the premiere of a piece by Tímea Dragony.
Let music draw us closer in the 2022/23 season! Join us, we look forward to welcoming you at our concerts!


Kesselyák Gergely, Conductor
Kobayashi Ken-Ichiro, Honorary Guest Conductor


Péter Csaba, Permanent Guest Conductor
Gábor Takács-Nagy Permanent Guest Conductor
He has been conducting since 2002, debuting in Switzerland at the Sion Festival. He became the Music Director of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra (Switzerland) in 2007. From 2011, he has been the chief conductor of the Manchester Camerata. In the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, he has been directing the workshops of the string musicians and the new chamber orchestra series of the ensemble since 2005. He became the first guest conductor of our orchestra in September 2008, and between September 2010 and June 2012, he was the chief conductor and music director of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra. Between 2014 and 2016, he was a guest conductor at the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
He has been the permanent guest conductor of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra since 2018.
