Adam Fischer was born in Budapest, and is one of the most important conductors working today. In 1987 he founded the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic, to unite musicians from both his home countries. At the same time he initiated the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt as an international platform for the performance of Haydn’s music.
He acquired his wide-ranging repertory through a career which he began as a répétiteur for the Graz Opera, going on to become general music director of the opera houses of Freiburg, Kassel, Mannheim and Budapest. In 1978 he made his international breakthrough standing in for Karl Böhm at the Bavarian State Opera. Since then he has been a regular guest at leading opera houses including the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Milan, the Paris Opéra, and the Metropolitan Opera and at international festivals such as the Bayreuth Festival and, since his debut there in 1980, the Salzburg Festival.
In addition to projects with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and the Danish Chamber Orchestra, highlights of the 2023/24 season have included a tour with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and performances with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, along with conducting a new production of La clemenza di Tito at the Hamburg State Opera and Le nozze di Figaro at the Vienna State Opera.
In 2006 Adam Fischer embarked on a new path with the founding of the Wagner Days in Budapest. Together with Gábor Zoboki, the architect of MÜPA, he realized his idea of performing Wagner’s works in a concert hall, including the entire hall in an all-round experience.
With the Danish Chamber Orchestra, whose artistic director he has been since 1998, he has developed a unique style. Their recordings of the complete Mozart symphonies and the complete Beethoven symphonies have won several awards. A complete recording of Brahms’s symphonies followed in 2022.
As the principal conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Adam Fischer initiated a Haydn-Mahler cycle in 2015, which received a BBC Music Magazine Award and an OPUS Klassik in 2019.
Adam Fischer is a member of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and since 2016 annually awards the Human Rights Prize of the Düsseldorf Tonhalle. His awards include the Israeli Wolf Prize, the Gold Medal of the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Danish Order of the Dannebrog and the special Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Classical Music Awards.
