Sunday, September 21
Cathedral, 8:00 p.m.

Orfeo Orchestra 
Purcell Choir
György Vashegyi, conductor and artistic leadership

Programme: F.I. Tuma, G.P. Telemann, J.S. Bach 

György Vashegyi graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1993. While still a student, he founded two early music ensembles: the Purcell Choir in 1990 and the Orfeo Orchestra in 1991, and he has served as their artistic director ever since. He joined the teaching staff at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1992. In 2017, he was elected President of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, a position he held for six years. He played a key role in the establishment of Haydneum – Hungarian Centre for Early Music, founded in July 2021. The Purcell Choir and the Orfeo Orchestra are the institution’s resident ensembles. Since November 1, 2022, he has served as General Music Director of the Hungarian National Philharmonic and the Hungarian National Choir. Since 1998, Vashegyi has made over 70 recordings—mostly with the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra—which have won numerous prestigious international awards. He has been involved in the Hungarian premieres of more than 100 significant musical works, many of them modern world premieres. One of his major areas of research is the French opera repertoire of the 18th and 19th centuries. In 2021, in recognition of his work in reviving early music, the French government awarded him the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In April 2024, he received the International Classical Music Award for Best Baroque Vocal Recording for Jouissons de Nos Beaux Ans!, a recording of French Baroque opera works made in collaboration with Cyrille Dubois.

The Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra were founded 30 years ago by György Vashegyi. Since then, they have become Hungary’s leading specialists in Early Music. Thanks to three decades of continuous training and artistic development under the direction of their founder, both the Choir and the Orchestra have been praised by the international press for their stylistic authenticity, and their recordings have received numerous prestigious awards. The Orchestra and Choir have been invited to perform across Europe on many occasions, including appearances in Paris, Versailles, Lyon, at the Herne Early Music Festival in Germany, and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. They have also collaborated with renowned conductors such as Helmuth Rilling, Masaaki Suzuki, and René Jacobs. Over the past 30 years, they have made several world premiere recordings. Since 2014, they have developed a close and fruitful collaboration with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, resulting in a series of French Baroque recordings performed with exceptional authenticity. As the resident ensembles of Haydneum – Hungarian Centre for Early Music, founded in 2021, the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra play a central role in the institution’s mission to develop and promote historically informed performance of early music, and to support research and performance of Hungarian Baroque, Viennese Classical, and Early Romantic repertoire.