One of the highlights was a concert held on May 14 at Müpa Budapest under the baton of Italian guest conductor Michelangelo Mazza. On this evening, it was announced that György Lendvai, the current director of the symphony orchestra, had received the Bartók Radio Music Award for the “Concert of the Year” category for a performance conducted by the legendary Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi.
There is a shared history with the Japanese musician: in 1974, he won the Budapest International Conducting Competition with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, marking the beginning of an artistic relationship that has seen Kobayashi become the orchestra’s honorary guest conductor and helped shape its identity.
Nor was the recognition Lendvai received his first; he was given a prestigious state award in 2013 for his work in preserving cultural values and prioritizing the musical education of young people.
The MÁV Szimfonikus Zenekar is a highly unusual professional ensemble, given that a national railway company maintains it. According to the official website, it was the conviction of founder László Varga that “after the peace treaties, besides building materials and food products, people would need a cure for the emotional wounds caused by the war. He believed that an orchestra traveling the country could serve as such. To implement his idea, special sleeping cars were developed for the musicians, and the musical instruments occupied another railway carriage. The anniversary is May 1: this is when the first formation of the railway brass band played as the MÁV Orchestra.”
One of the orchestra’s career highlights took place in 1999, when it performed at the Three Tenors world tour concert in the Tokyo Dome baseball arena before an audience of 32,000, accompanying the superstar opera singers José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti.
Following the successful collaboration, the orchestra became a regular participant in Pavarotti’s European farewell tour, during which they performed on stage with the legendary tenor 10 times.
The MÁV Symphony Orchestra has been led by many of the world’s most famous conductors, such as Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, and Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi. It has collaborated with internationally renowned artists such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Ruggiero Ricci, Maxim Vengerov, Lazar Berman and Zoltán Kocsis.
Its repertoire is extensive, ranging from baroque music to contemporary works. Under the direction of principal conductor Róbert Farkas, the ensemble performs works by both classical and modern composers. It regularly plays at the Great Hall of the Liszt Academy of Music and the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall of the MŰPA, as well as on numerous international stages.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of June 16, 2025.
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