Concert in Pesti Vigado, Budapest
Blue Danube Musikimpresario/Vienna, along with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, co-produced a concert in historic Ceremonial Hall of the Pesti Vigado in Budapest, Hungary on Sunday evening, 27 April 2025. The concert featured the King Stephen Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven; Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor by Johannes Brahms; Pavane pour une infante defunte by Maurice Ravel; and three world premiere performances: Symphony No. 6 by Franck Dansaert; Natalie’s Suite by Mark John McEncroe; and RISE – Symphony No. 1 in D minor by Ganesh B. Kumar. The Russian-American pianist, Kristina Moditch, was the piano soloist in the McEncroe work.
Franck Dansaert is a French composer from Paris currently based in Hong Kong; Mark John McEncroe is an Australian composer from Sydney; and Ganesh B. Kumar in an Indian composer from Chennai.
This was the fifth in a series of concerts Blue Danube Musikimpresario/Vienna and the Budapest Symphony Orchestra have produced and performed in the Pesti Vigado (which overlooks the Danube River) since April of 2022. The Budapest Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Blue Danube Musikimpresario’s director, Anthony Armore.
Built to replace another concert hall on the same site overlooking the Danube (which was destroyed by fire in the 1848 War of Independence) Frigyes Feszl’s Vigadó was also badly damaged, this time during World War II. The post-war reconstruction, which took some thirty-six years to complete, remains faithful to his original design and continues to attract leading conductors and performers from around the world. The facade of the Vigadó was cleaned and restored in 2006.
An interesting coincidence – Beethoven was commissioned to write his Overture to King Stephen (founder of the Kingdom of Hungary in the year 1000) by the Austrian Emperor Francis I in 1808 for the opening of a theatre the Emperor decided to build for the Hungarians to encourage unity. The work was first performed in 1812 in Pest after the large dramatic theatre opened there in 1811.
