We are sorry to announce that because of health reasons, Iván Fischer will not be able to conduct our concert on 1 April (Monday) with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. However, we are delighted that the young Hungarian conductor, Gábor Káli, who has conducted the orchestra in Budapest, Hamburg and Luxembourg in the previous days, impressing critics as well, can step in with an unchanged programme.
Hamburger Abendblatt labelled the concert he conducted a "breathtaking quality", the critic referred to a "fascinating freshness", and also pointed out that the young conductor excellently replaced Iván Fischer. The article ended with an exclamation: "what an evening!".
He has also won Hong Kong’s first international orchestra conducting competition and the Orchestra Prize in 2018. In summer 2019 he will therefore return to the Salzburg Festival and conduct the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna in concert as well as in a CD production.
He worked with the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, the Staatstheater Darmstadt, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Philharmonie Bohuslav Martinů and the Sonarten Ensemble for contemporary music in Barcelona.
He joined the Staatstheater in Nürnberg as Kapellmeister and Assistant to the Generalmusikdirektor Marcus Bosch before taking the post of First Kapellmeister and Deputy Music Director in 2015. Productions he conducted include Wozzeck, La Bohème, Attila, From the House of the Dead, Ballo in Maschera, Rigoletto, Les pêcheurs de perles, Arabella and Otello.
Gábor Káli started to study piano and conducting at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest and moved to Berlin from 2004 to 2009 for continue his conducting studies with Prof. Lutz Köhler at the Universität der Künste. He joined the Dirigentenforum of the Deutsche Musikrat where he engaged in masterclasses with Kurt Masur, Colin Metters and Sian Edwards. He also took part in courses with Peter Eötvös, Bernhard Haitink and David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich.
