László Tóth
General Manager, Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra,

I think the biggest challenge is the digital world, the accelerated world. Some people predict, predict that the golden age of classical music will come again when people are so over-excited that they long for calm and silence, and it will be trendy again to feel that time stands still, or at least slows down, at a classical music concert.

We are not yet at the end of the spin we are experiencing now, and when it arrives, hopefully in 5-10 years, a new generation will look forward to what previous generations may have experienced at a classical music concert. What is the goal now? For now, my sense is that right now, the audience is still clamouring for excitement: to create crossover productions, to make everyone’s message as exciting, as penetrating and as unique as possible. That’s what I think is happening for now. It’s always a little bit about zanza-ed smaller programmes, spectacular twists to somehow reach the audience with as spectacular marketing as possible.

The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra is 170 years old, so this is our 170th season. Ferenc Erkel started this initiative. Music historians refer to this formation as the first Hungarian symphony orchestra, and we are very proud that it has been a constant cultural presence or offering. When I became president at the end of 2016, I felt it was very important that a formation with such a past should always do something for the future. We have been good in the past, but if we don’t think about the future – the future is very important. But how do we reach the youth of today? Our most important ars poetic was that we have to have a programme that is unique and of a very high quality, because the young people of today are getting such short and professional impulses over the phone that if I don’t compete with that and put a string quartet in front of them, saying that this is classical music – I think that’s pretty much the end of the story. So we worked very hard with teachers, drama teachers, graphic designers, to put together unique youth performances that I said at the end of the day, this is what sucks them in, it has to have an impact.

If even that doesn’t have an impact, I’ll put my hand up. A lot of work goes into the preparation. We were able to join an Ervin Lazar programme, and fortunately we found these programmes just before, so when the wind of time blew around 2018, they were created – and when the Ervin Lazar programme started, we were able to integrate these programmes into this national project. So basically we are now around 1,000 performances: that’s how many we will have to do, and it’s also an amazing logistical task, going everywhere from Nyíregyháza to Mohács to Szombathely. Right now, as we sit here, we have six groups travelling the country, from second to seventh grade.

Each group plays 3-4 performances on any given day. So you can calculate the volume, and this programme runs from Monday to Friday until the end of November. We’re very happy with the volume, because it makes it a cultural mission to really take the message of culture to the most remote places with what we think are high quality programmes.