The results of the EUYO – Budapest Festival Orchestra Apprenticeship Scheme are out, following a live final in Budapest before BFO Music Director Iván Fischer and BFO musicians. Congratulations to the following EUYO musicians, who will join BFO this season!

Lucrezia Constanzo (Italy, Violin)
Marta Dettlaff (Poland, Violin)
Pietro Silvestri (Italy, Cello)
Alberto Sánchez Garcia (Spain, Clarinet)
Kayetan Cygański Bolski (Poland, Bassoon).

Our partnership has flourished since 2014, the idea being to provide EUYO members with professional experience working with one of the world’s top orchestras. The Apprenticeship Scheme gives them the opportunity to join BFO for 10-12 weeks’ work, side-by-side with the Orchestra’s regular members.

BFO is celebrated for its excellence, ranked as early as 2009 as one of the world’s top ten orchestras by Gramophone Magazine. It is also a team of creative, risk-taking musicians, which also promotes all individual members’ own artistic projects. Founded by Iván Fischer and Zoltán Kocsis in 1983, it has instigated many transformational reforms both in programming and musical practice. Its new concert series include the autism-friendly Cocoa Concerts, its – well, surprising Surprise Concerts, free-of-charge Community Weeks, and the Music Castle programme for children who, the Orchestra explains, “be it for medical, social, physical or financial reasons, would not normally be able to enjoy our concerts.”

Iván Fischer states that BFO’s “purpose is to serve the community…to share the joy of music, in all forms, to all generations.” The Orchestra further co-produces the annual Bridging Europe festival with Müpa Budapest, focusing each year on the musical and cultural traditions of a particular European country or group of countries. Artistic narratives are part of the meaning-making every culture builds together; through them, we can better come to understand each other.