Budapest Festival Orchestra is rated among the top ten orchestras in the world. The orchestra regularly performs at the most important concert venues of the international music scene, including Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center in New York, the Musikverein in Vienna and the Royal Albert Hall and Barbican Centre in London. They have repeatedly been invited to perform at international festivals such as the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Salzburg Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival. The BFO has won two Gramophone Awards. It was nominated for a Grammy in 2013 for its recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and won the Diapason d’Or and the Italian Toblacher Komponierhäuschen prize for its recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in 2014. The BFO received the Association of Music Critics of Argentina’s award for Best Foreign Symphony Orchestra in 2016. Iván Fischer is the founder and Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, as well as the Honorary Conductor of the Konzerthaus and Konzerthausorchester Berlin. On top of that, he has gained a reputation as a composer, with his works being performed in the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Germany and Austria. He has directed a number of highly successful opera productions.