Conducting Masterclass
The 11th International MasterclassBudapest for Conductors by Jorma Panula will be held from 21 to 25th of August in 2025, with the participation of the MÁV Symphony Orchestra. Application period is open till 15th of June.
The masterclass is open for all conductors, without age limit. Based on the online application material, 10 active participants will be selected by Maestro Panula. During the five days, each active conductor will get about 140 minutes active podium time in front of the full symphony orchestra. The sessions will be recorded and the videos will be discussed with Maestro after the orchestral sessions. Selected conductors will get the possibility to conduct on the final, public concert on the 25th of August at the prestigious great hall of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Budapest (Olasz Kultúrintézet). Passive participation is also possible. The official language of the masterclass is English. For repertoire and more information click here.
The masterclass is open for all conductors, without age limit. Based on the online application material, 10 active participants will be selected by Maestro Panula. During the five days, each active conductor will get about 140 minutes active podium time in front of the full symphony orchestra. The sessions will be recorded and the videos will be discussed with Maestro after the orchestral sessions. Selected conductors will get the possibility to conduct on the final, public concert on the 25th of August at the prestigious great hall of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Budapest (Olasz Kultúrintézet). Passive participation is also possible. The official language of the masterclass is English. For repertoire and more information click here.
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Jorma Panula - professor
Born in Finland, Jorma Panula was the artistic director and chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra from 1963 to 1965, the Helsinki Philharmonic from 1965 to 1972 and the Aarhus Symphony from 1970 to 1973. He has been a frequent guest conductor of the Finnish National Opera. Panula was Professor of Conducting at the Sibelius Academy from 1973 to 1994 and the faculties of the Stockholm Royal Academy and the Copenhagen Royal Academy. He is now a guest conductor and professor of conducting courses all over the world including Paris, London, Amsterdam, Moscow, New York, Tanglewood, Aspen, Ottawa and Sydney. As a pedagogue, Panula has been a teacher and mentor to many Finnish conductors of successive generations, such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mikko Franck, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä and Klaus Mäkelä. Panula studied church music and conducting at the Sibelius Academy. His teachers have been: Leo Funtek, Dean Dixon, Albert Wolff and Franco Ferrara. Apart from conducting, he has composed a wide variety of music. His operas Jaako Ilkka and the River Opera established a genre entitled "performance opera" for its fusion of music, visual art and the art of daily life. Panula's other compositions include musicals, church music, a violin concerto, jazz capriccio and numerous pieces of vocal music. |
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Huba Hollókői - organiser, assistant teacher
Hungarian born Huba Hollókői is an award winning conductor, violinist, opera director and arranger. Since 2022 he is artistic director of the Kecskemét Symphony Orchestra. As a conductor, Hollókői has worked with leading symphony orchestras around the world, including the Netherland Philharmonic Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra, Noord Netherland Orchestra, Dutch Ballet Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Oulu Symphony Orchestra, Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Sønderjyllands Symphony Orchestra, OSUG Symphony Orchestra, MÁV Symphony Orchestra, Danubia Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra, Győr Symphony Orchestra. He made his Concertgebouw debut in 2017 with the Philharmonie Südwestfalen. Hollókői regularly appears with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, the Joensuu City Orchestra as well as the Filarmonica Mihail Jora Bacău. His soloist partners were Barnabás Kelemen, Minna Pensola (violin), Suzana Bartal, Janne Mertanen, Balázs Fülei, Viniciu Moroianu, Oana Csiky (piano), Stefan Danifeld (horn), Hugo Manzanilla Victoria (clarinet), among others. Hollókői is a sought after opera conductor; several of his productions have received critical acclaim, including Bizet's Carmen, Verdi's Rigoletto, a handful of Mozart operas, Beethoven’s Fidelio, and the Finnish premier of Cesar Cui’s “Puss in boots” children opera. He debuted as stage director with Donizetti’s L’elisir D’amore. He conducted a dozen of contemporary music premiers on the "Iubiți Muzica Româneasca!" festival in Oradea, “Intrada” Festival in Timisoara, with the UMZE Ensemble in Budapest, and also prepared the premiere of Monique Krüs's opera, Anne Frank. |
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István Kassai - pianist
István Kassai is a Hungarian pianist. He graduated at the Budapest Liszt Academy of Music in 1982 studying in the class of Pál Kadosa. Then in 1984 he pursued his second diploma in the Conservatoire Européen de Musique de Paris under the close supervision of Yvonne Lefébure. During and after his studies he also undertook several master courses, such as the one led by György Cziffra in Senlis and Keszthely, too. During his career, he has won several first prizes in international competitions such as the International Youth Piano Competition in Ústí nad Labem 1972 in Czechoslovakia, the Hungarian Radio Piano Competition in 1979, and the Premier Grand Prix in the International Debussy Piano Competition, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Paris in 1982. He was acknowledged by the ARTISJUS-Prize in 1976, the Bonnaud-Chevillion-Prize of the Fondation de France in 1986, the Nívó Prize of the Hungarian Radio in 1990, the Ferenc Liszt Prize in 2001 and the Weiner Leó Memorial Prize in 2010. He is a full member in the Hungarian Academy of Arts since 2013. István Kassai made CD recordings of the complete piano works of Ernest Bloch, Ferenc Erkel, Mihály Mosonyi, Leó Weiner, Jenő Hubay and Sándor Balassa, which was followed by more than a dozen of CD releases including works by Ernő Dohnányi, Ferenc Liszt, Béla Bartók, Robert Volkmann, Imre Széchényi and Johannes Brahms. He has published numerous articles and studies on music and edited many volumes of sheet music by composers and musicians such as Liszt, Mosonyi, Hubay, Weiner and György Cziffra. |
Click to Archive to read about previous masterclasses.