Strategic Cooperation Between The Palace of Arts And The Budapest Festival Orchestra

2012. February 07.

The Palace of Arts and the Budapest Festival Orchestra will begin strategic cooperation starting from the 2012-2013 season. A shared history is the basis for this strategic alliance – which will implement closer cooperation than ever before – and its future will rely on faith in high quality co-productions, as well as the common intention of adding to Hungary’s reputation for quality cultural events.

“The memorandum of understanding just signed by the Palace of Arts and the Budapest Festival Orchestra records the birth of a special form of cooperation, strategic partnership. Partnership will provide a stronger framework for our cooperation to date, but will also entail a whole lot more. It declares that the Palace of Arts will be the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s home. It expresses our close and ever deeper relationship and open up possibilities for the future that we have not yet leveraged. In part, this will be implemented at the level of content, and in part on the front of marketing and communication”, Csaba Káel said at the joint press conference held by the two institutions on February 7, where he signed the declaration that stipulates the intent to cooperate together with Stefan Englert, the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s managing director.
“I believe embarking on strategic cooperation is a logical step. All the more so, because we already take part in a large number of joint production, and also because it sees one of the best orchestras in the world joining forces with one of the world’s best centres for the performing arts. The Festival Orchestra has at least thirty concerts here every year, so the Palace of Arts is our most important venue, this is where we feel at home”, said Stefan Englert.
The two institutions will reconcile its program and soloists regularly in the future. The Palace of Arts also intends to afford the chance for the more emphatic presence of soloists invited by the Festival Orchestra in the life of the institution, in the form of individual chamber concerts and master courses. In addition to continuing previous projects, the two institutions are also committed to creating further significant co-productions, which they will represent jointly when abroad. The two institutions, which are likewise dedicated to bringing-up classical music audiences of the future, are seeking out new opportunities for music education, which will make it possible for the Palace of Arts’ partner schools to visit the Festival Orchestra’s rehearsals.
In the scope of their strategic cooperation, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Palace of Arts will strive to appear in each other’s spaces and interfaces in a way that unequivocally reflects their strategic partnership. Their strategic partnership will appear in publications that accompany the Budapest Festival Orchestra’s appearances abroad and at its concert venues; visual and textual displays with similar content will accompany all of the Festival Orchestra’s performances at the Palace of Arts.
Cooperation between one of the world’s leading orchestras and the institution, which ranks in the top tier of performing arts centres around the world, dates back to 2005, the year the latter was inaugurated. The idea for a unique genre, seldom realised anywhere in the world’s music performance repertoire, i.e. the “marathon” came up after their first joint Mahler Festival: it became a production to determine the Palace of Arts’ image after being initiated by Iván Fischer.
The series of marathons began with Tchaikovsky, followed by Dvořák in 2009, Beethoven in 2010, then Schubert in 2011. The marathon concerts, which regularly play to sold-out evenings, allowed music aficionados and music lovers alike to immerse themselves in the art of the greatest composers. A unique genre was born out of the meeting of the euphoric festival atmosphere and particularly high quality concerts.
The two institutions’ first shared Mozart opera – Cosí fan tutte – was also staged in 2008, followed by The Marriage of Figaro in 2009, then Don Giovanni in 2010. One thing that goes to prove the ever tighter cooperation of organisers is that based on preliminary concepts, this series will likely be continued with a new instalment in 2013.

7.2.2012