Clearly, it’s not the first time the EUYO has worked with Iván Fischer: there have been and will be many inspiring projects, and we could not have been prouder to announce his appointment as our new Music Director last July. We also love working with star solo violinist Diana Tishchenko, including unforgettable projects on the ancient and sacred island of Delos in both 2022 and 2024. And our collaborations with Iván Fischer’s world-renowned Budapest Festival Orchestra go back over a decade, with a very successful Apprenticeship Scheme offering extended professional develoment for EUYO musicians.

Imagine, then, how happy we were to be in Budapest with Maestro Fischer, the BFO, Diana, and Jenő Lisztes (cimbalom) as part of the Bridging Europe Festival. In a development of the Apprenticeship Scheme, Iván Fischer and Marshall Marcus have founded the European Orchestra Academy, training selected young musicians both in classic orchestral excellence, and in the pan-European, multidisciplinary approaches that will define musical leadership of the future. The Academy’s first concerts, on September 20-23, 2024, were part of the Bridging Europe Festival in Hungary and Belgium, under the auspices of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Iván Fischer founded Bridging Europe in 2013, marking the 30th anniversary of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Bridging Europe introduces a different European country every year – through its culture. Experience breeds understanding, and understanding, true bridges: “I wish”, Fischer said in an interview at the Festival’s founding, “not only politicians but also artists were concerned with Europe. We must do all we can in order for European people and nations to learn more about one another, get closer to one other, for them not just to foster empty clichés about each other but truly get to know other peoples’ countries.”