Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Chœur de Chambre de Namur & Gergely Madaras
Biography Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Chœur de Chambre de Namur & Gergely Madaras
Gergely Madara
is Music Director of Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège. Having taken up the position in September 2019, they are enjoying a fruitful relationship with numerous series in Liège and Bozar Brussels, regular broadcasts on Mezzo TV, Medici TV and RTBF, and a growing recording catalogue for Alpha Classics, Cyprés and Nomad Play labels. Gergely stepped down as Music Director of the Orchestre Dijon Bourgogne in 2019 and as Chief Conductor of the Savaria Symphony Orchestra in his native Hungary in 2020, having held both positions for 6 years.
Having forged strong professional relationships throughout Europe, Gergely regularly appears as a guest conductor with orchestras including the BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Hallé, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Lyon, Filarmonica della Scala, Maggio Muiscale Fiorentino, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Hungarian National Philharmonic and Hungarian Radio orchestras, the Copenhagen, Oslo, Bergen, Luxembourg philharmonic orchestras as well as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Münchener Kammerorchester and Academy of Ancient Music. Further afield, he has appeared with the Melbourne, Queensland and Houston Symphony orchestras.
Future highlights include Gergely’s debut with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich, Hamburger Symphoniker, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. This season he returns to Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Hungarian National Philharmonic orchestras, among others.
While grounded in the core classical and romantic repertoire, he maintains a close relationship with new music. He has collaborated with composers George Benjamin, Péter Eötvös, György Kurtág, Tristan Murail, Luca Francesconi, Philippe Booesmans and Pierre Boulez, for whom he served as assistant conductor at the Lucerne Festival Academy between 2011-2013.
Gergely has also established a fine reputation as an opera conductor. Between 2012-14 he was the inaugural Sir Charles Mackerras Fellow at the English National Opera, which culminated in his operatic debut at the London Coliseum with a new production of Magic Flute with stage director Simon McBurney. Since then, he has conducted highly praised productions of Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Otello, La Traviata, La Bohème and Lucia di Lammermoor at such houses as the Dutch National Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève (with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande) and Hungarian State Opera, among others. Prompted by a keen interest in re-discovering rarely performed works, Gergely has also conducted productions of Goldmark’s Ein Wintermärchen, Grieg’s Peer Gynt, Barber’s Vanessa, Donizetti’s Viva la Mamma and Offenbach’s Fantasio. Upcoming invitations include La Monnaie de Munt in Brussels.
Gergely is a regular guest at major music festivals. He opened the 2018 Miliano Musica Festival at La Scala and has appeared at Lucerne, Gstaad, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Septembre Musical Montreux, MiTo Settembre Musica, Budapest Spring Festival, Bucharest Enescu Festival and Tokyo Stradivarius Festival.
Born in Budapest in 1984, Gergely first began studying folk music with the last generation of authentic Hungarian Gipsy and peasant musicians at the age of five. He then went on to study classical flute, violin and composition, graduating from the flute faculty of the Liszt Academy in Budapest, as well as the conducting faculty of the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where he studied with Mark Stringer.
Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège
Founded in 1960, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège (OPRL) is the only professional symphony orchestra in French-speaking Belgium.
Supported by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, the City of Liège and the Province of Liège, the OPRL performs in Liège, in the prestigious setting of the Salle Philharmonique (1887), throughout the country (in Brussels, Charleroi, Namur, Ostend, Saint-Hubert, Saint-Vith, Tournai, Turnhout, Val-Dieu... ), in major European venues and festivals (Amsterdam, Paris, Besançon, Vienna, Spain, Switzerland...), as well as in Japan, the United States and South America (tour in 2022).
Under the impetus of its founder Fernand Quinet and its Music Directors (Manuel Rosenthal, Paul Strauss, Pierre Bartholomée, Louis Langrée, Pascal Rophé, François-Xavier Roth, Christian Arming), the OPRL has forged a sound identity at the crossroads of Germanic and French traditions. This work will be continued by Gergely Madaras from September 2019. In addition to a strong commitment to supporting creative work, promoting Franco-Belgian heritage and exploring new repertoires, the OPRL has a strong recording policy, with over 110 recordings to its name.
Its current recordings include Franck's complete symphonies and Les Béatitudes (Fuga Libera), Franck's opera Hulda (Palazzetto Bru Zane), Respighi (BIS), the Symphonies of Saint-Saëns (BIS), Abbey Road Rhapsody (Alpha), the complete symphonies of Ernő Dohnányi (Alpha Classics) and an album devoted to Claude Ledoux (Kairos).
For 20 years, OPRL has been committed to offering the best music to as many people as possible, through original formulas (Music Factory, Family Sundays, Happy Hour!, OPRL+) and dedicated series (Early Music, World Music, Piano 5 étoiles, Organ). Since 2016, it has enjoyed a partnership with the TV channel Mezzo Live HD (Europe, Asia, Canada) and, since 2021, with Medici.tv. In 2022, it will celebrate the bicentenary of César Franck (born in Liège), with a series of concerts, several boxed discs, new releases and digital projects.
The OPRL is also committed to its civic role throughout the year, reaching out to audiences who are less familiar with classical culture. It targets young people in particular, through events in schools, themed concerts (including L'Orchestre à la portée des enfants) and above all, since 2015, by setting up neighbourhood orchestras with the ReMuA association (El Sistema Liège). In a spirit of participation, OPRL musicians have been involved since 2016 in the design of two concert series (Happy Hour! and Musique à midi) and an original educational project (PeDaHop).
