Credit: Felvégi Andrea
Credit: Felvégi Andrea
András Keller
Music Director
Violinist, founder of the Keller Quartet, music director of Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Professor of Violin and Béla Bartók International Chair at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
András Keller has enjoyed a varied career as soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician at the highest international level.
His early studies at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest led to many collaborations with György Kurtág, whose works he has been premiering and performing worldwide since 1978.
He has also enjoyed working intensively with Ferenc Rados and, until his death, Sándor Végh.
András Keller founded the Keller String Quartet in 1987, and has since given master classes and concerts throughout the world. He is regular coach at Aix-en-Provence Festival, returning guest of Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and IMS Prussia Cove. As both chamber musician and soloist, he has appeared in every European country, playing in many prestigious venues and festivals, including Edinburgh, Lucerne, Aldeburgh, Schleswig Holstein and the BBC Proms. Outside Europe, András Keller has been invited to both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center, New York, the Washington Library of Congress and many cities in Japan, China, Korea.
During his career he has worked with world-renowned artists including Mstislav Rostropovich, Natalia Gutman, Boris Pergamenschikow, Tabea Zimmerman, Truls Mørk, Zoltán Kocsis, Miklós Perényi, Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, Evgeni Koroliov, Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Lubimov, Juliane Banse, Anna Vinnitskaya, Vadim Repin, Isabelle Faust and Steven Kovacevic.
András Keller has won numerous awards including a MIDEM Classical Award, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, a Record Academy Award in Japan, the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros in France, the Caecilia Prize in Belgium, and he received a UK nomination for the Royal Philharmonic Society Award. He also received Edison Award and Premio Abbiati besides Merit Artist of Hungary, Liszt Ferenc Prize and Bartók-Pásztory Prize.
András Keller was the Artistic Director of the Arcus Temporum Festival in Pannonhalma between 2004-2010, and was appointed Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra in August 2007. Since then, Concerto Budapest has earned its well-deserved reputation as one of the most respected Hungarian touring orchestra.
He was the founder and the artistic director of International Sándor Végh String Quartet Competition.
Between 2012-2015, András Keller was head of Chamber Music Department in Liszt Academy of Music.
From 2016 he is Professor of Violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 2018 he was appointed there as Béla Bartók International Chair in recognition of his world-class performing career and services to music.
Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra
Zoltan Fejérvári, pianist
Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra is one of Hungary’s leading orchestras, with its rich history and dynamism of its young musicians. It is one of the most progressive and versatile symphonic orchestras, whose playing is characterized by the passion, energy, and commitment that its musicians give to their performances of repertoire ranging from well-loved masterpieces to newly composed works of the twenty-first century. Through its ambitious and innovative programs and special sound, it has brought a new colour to Hungary’s musical palette.
Concerto Budapest is one of Hungary’s oldest ensembles with more than 100 years of history, its predecessor was founded in 1907. In 2007, on its 100th anniversary, András Keller, world-renowned Hungarian violinist, pedagogue, and the founder of the Keller Quartet, was appointed as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the orchestra. Under his leadership, the orchestra underwent a major period of artistic growth and development, as the foremost young chamber musicians have joined him.
András Keller’s innovative concert programs are designed to engage both musicians and audience members alike in a dialogue with the music. To heighten this tension, old masterpieces are often heard alongside contemporary pieces, often illuminating new aspects of both works that are a result of that particular pairing.
Highly acclaimed Hungarian musicians such as Dezső Ránki, Zoltán Kocsis, Dénes Várjon, Barnabás Kelemen, and Miklos Perényi are regular guests of the orchestra, in addition to Concerto Budapest’s returning international guest soloists and collaborators, who include Gidon Kremer, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, Roberto Abbado, Vadim Repin, Heinz Holliger, Isabelle Faust, Khatia Buniatishvili, Anna Vinnitskaya, Sir James Galway and Evgeni Koroliov.
Concerto Budapest's repertoire ranges from virtuosic, large-scale symphonic works from Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich to classical concertos from Mozart or Beethoven, or contemporary pieces from Thomas Adés, Lera Auerbach, György Kurtág, Krzysztof Penderecki, and László Vidovsky,
among others.
Concerto Budapest has become a well-respected player on the international music scene, performing to great acclaim in the major cities of China, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the United States.