European Union Youth Orchestra Appoints New Music Director

Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer will assume the role, effective immediately

Iván Fischer has joined the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) as its new Music Director, succeeding Vasily Petrenko, who held the role of chief conductor for 10 years. Petrenko will return to conduct EUYO in the summer of 2025 for concerts in Grafenegg.

Fischer’s first project with EUYO will be its annual summer residency in Grafenegg in August 2024, followed by a tour to New York as part of Carnegie Hall’s WOW! Festival, plus its annual concerts at the Bolzano Festival Bozen. 

In his new role, Fischer will be involved in planning EUYO’s auditions, artistic training, and performances, and will work closely with EUYO’s Executive and Artistic Director, Marshall Marcus. 

He will continue his current positions as Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO), Honorary Guest Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Honorary Conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. 

At EUYO, Fischer will also be involved in the development of the Apprenticeship Scheme — a decade-long collaboration between EUYO and BFO — which will be launching its new European Orchestra Academy. 

The Academy will train future music leaders in orchestral music, chamber music, and music promotion, plus will focus on broadening the range of activities that musicians undertake in the industry. The Academy will also hold a series of residencies in all EU countries. 

The first project involving the Academy will see joint concerts in September 2024 with both BFO and EUYO players in this year’s edition of the Bridging Europe Festival, and in the capitals of the EU’s two 2024 Presidency countries, Belgium and Hungary.

“I trust the new generation, they will change the world,” Fischer said in the press release. “The first step is to apply to the EUYO. We start the rest this August.”

“The prospect of a musician of the talent, creativity, and humanity of Iván Fischer as the EUYO’s new Music Director is quite simply momentous, and in reality, he has already opened up some remarkable vistas to the future,” added Marcus. “At the same time I should like to thank Vasily Petrenko for ten years of astute, exciting, expert work; professional beyond reproach, he has really pushed the EUYO to improve and to develop as an orchestra.”