Ferenc Fricsay

Ferenc Fricsay (; 9 August 1914 – 20 February 1963) was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.

Biography Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leó Weiner. With these and other faculty at the Budapest Academy of Music he studied piano, violin, clarinet, trombone, percussion, composition and conducting. Fricsay made his first appearance as a conductor at age 15, substituting for his father at the podium of the Young Musicians Orchestra of Budapest. In 1930, at the age of 16, he succeeded his father as conductor of the Young Musicians Orchestra. then, from 1933 to 1943, he was music director of the Szeged Philharmonic Orchestra in the third largest city in Hungary; he also served as director of its military band from 1933. In 1942, he was court-martialed by the government of Miklós Horthy for wanting to employ Jewish musicians, and for having "Jewish blood" himself (according to reliable reports, his mother was Jewish). He made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic in 1954. He spent much of his time from the 1950s onward in Germany as music director of the Bavarian State Opera (1956–1958) and as conductor of the RIAS Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Berlin Philharmonic. Also in 1956, he was appointed General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera, a position he held until 1958.

Fricsay gave his last concert on 7 December 1961 in London, conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK premiere of Zoltán Kodály's Symphony, Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto (with Wolfgang Schneiderhan), and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

The grave in 2024 with a bust of Fricsay and Lake Constance reflected in the tombstone. Fricsay found his final resting place at the cemetery of Ermatingen in the Swiss canton of Thurgau, where the family settled in 1952. His mother Berta, née Lengyel (1876-1963), died less than a month after Fricsay and was buried in the same grave. His grandson Dominic-Ferenc Dobay (1972-1992), his first wife Martha Fricsay-Telbisz (1915-1997) and Herta Stein (1912-2005) were buried in the same site as well. In 2015, the grave was declared by the municipality as a memorial which is protected from dissolution.

Repertoire and recordings Fricsay was known for his interpretations of the music of Mozart and Beethoven, as well as that of his teachers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. According to the entry in "New Grove", he conducted without a baton, but "confounded the adverse critics of this technique by the extreme clarity and precision of his performances," to which "New Grove" ascribes "a dynamic spirit" and "vividness of character in familiar classics."

From the 1950s until his death, he recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. He led the inauguration of the rebuilt Deutsche Oper Berlin with a performance of Don Giovanni on 24 September 1961.

The first edition of the competition took place from 3 to 10 September 2023. The jury was chaired by Vasily Petrenko and included Hermann Bäumer, Sándor Gyüdi, Constantine Orbelian, Thomas Sanderling and Ewa Strusińska. The laureates listed for the first edition were Sebastiaan van Yperen, Noris Borgogelli, Gabriel Hollander and Jorge Vázquez.

The second edition was held in Szeged from 31 August to 7 September 2025. The jury was chaired by Nayden Todorov and included Heiko Mathias Förster, Sándor Gyüdi, Lucius Hemmer, Alevtina Ioffe, Kirill Karabits, Constantine Orbelian and Adam Stadnicki. Its laureates were Misha Shekhtman, Hyunsik Shin, Nicolò Azzena and Vivian (Wing Wun) Ip.