The joint festival of Müpa Budapest and the Budapest Festival Orchestra always lends an exciting flavour to the start of the new season: besides classical concerts, it also features jazz, pop and world music, as well as film screenings. At the centre of each instalment over the years of this event series launched in 2013 has been a country or group of countries with a rich and diverse culture and significant musical traditions – as a country’s music says a great deal about its inhabitants. In 2021, the concept behind the festival was changed: although the focus remains on Europe, within this context we now partner each year with another city known as a bastion of culture.

There is a symbolic reason why the choice fell on the Belgian capital this year: Hungary is slated to take over the presidency of the Council of the European Union from Belgium this summer, so we are building a bridge between Budapest and Brussels at the September festival, offering several productions in both Budapest and Brussels that feature major artists from both cities joining forces.