Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi made his début in Hungary almost four decades ago in 1974, when he won the First International Conductors’ Competition on Hungarian Television. The competition was the first occasion on which he conducted the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, with which he has maintained a close association ever since. The soloist for the evening, István Várdai, is one of the finest young Hungarian cellists, who – among many other accolades – boasts of no lesser “trophies” than third prize in the Inte...rnational Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and both the main and audience prizes at the Geneva International Music Competition. The MÁV Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1945 by László Varga, then president and general manager of the Hungarian State Railways. Its founding conductor was Tibor Szőke, the young conductor of the Hungarian Opera House and a student of János Ferencsik. Its stated objective was to use the railways to carry the new orchestra to play concerts all across Hungary, thus contributing to the intellectual rebuilding of a country devastated by war. Within a short time, the ensemble had risen to the forefront of Hungarian musical life, where it remains to this day. After Glinka, the creator of the Russian national opera genre, Tchaikovsky was the first composer to meld European traditions with original Russian musical elements. One of the chorus scenes of Eugene Onegin, his opera based on Pushkin’s novel in verse, contains the famous Polonaise, a dance of Polish origin but distinctively Russian character. An addendum to the European music of older times also inspired the Rococo Variations, in which we can enjoy the virtuoso play of the cello; sometimes singing, sometimes dancing, this is the instrument that most closely resembles the human voice. The concert closes with one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular compositions, his Symphony No. 4.
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.