Capella Savaria
Founded in 1981, in Szombathely, Capella Savaria has earned its fame as the first period-instrument chamber orchestra of Hungary. Its innovative efforts created quite a sensation at the time in musical circles. The ensemble’s objectives were, from the onset, to play baroque and classical music in an authentic way by relying on genuine documents of the period. The founding artistic director was Pál Németh, followed by Zsolt Kalló who has been directing the ensemble since 1999. The members of the ensemble play authentic 18th-century instruments, or their copies. Capella Savaria performs chamber and orchestral pieces as well as operas or oratorios. They have made over 80 recordings, issued by Hungaroton, Centaur Records, Quintana, Harmonia Mundi, Dynamic, Naxos, and Dorian Records, five of which have been awarded with the Hungarian “Record of the Year” prize. The conductor of their opera and passion series, Nicholas McGegan (the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor), has recorded 20 CDs with Capella Savaria. Their CDs also include some genuine rarities such as Hungarian music from the 18th century and the works of Druschetzky, Roman, A. Scarlatti, B. Marcello, Telemann, Werner, Naudot, Rameau, Fasch and Muffat. They have given concerts in 22 European countries outside Hungary and have appeared in both the Northern and the Southern parts of the American continent and in Israel. They are regular participants of Hungarian early music festivals (in Sopron, Fertőd, Budapest, and Zemplén) but have featured such festivals in Brugge, Innsbruck, Regensburg, Göttingen, Halle, Utrecht, Zerbst, Warszawa, Wroclaw. They often perform on Hungarian TV and radio, and were awarded with the prestigious Liszt Prize in 1991. On the 25th anniversary of the ensemble’s foundation in 2006 the chamber orchestra was honoured with the Prima Primissima Prize in Vas County. The Canadian Opus Magazine has described Capella Savaria as “one of Europe’s best ensembles”.

Zsolt Kalló
acts as the concertmaster, soloist and artistic director of Capella Savaria. He studied violin as Eszter Perényi’s student at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest and graduated in 1990 as an honoured violin artist. He also studied with Sándor Végh in Salzburg between 1988 and 1989. As a concertmaster, he has played with several acclaimed chamber orchestras including Sonora Hungarica, Aura Musicale, Concerto Armonico, and the Orfeo Orchestra but he has also impressed audiences as a soloist via his numerous CD, radio and TV recordings. He is also renowned for founding the Trio Antiqua and the Authentic Quartet. He has been invited as a professor to various early music courses. He currently teaches at the Szombathely Conservatory of Music and at the ’Varga Tibor’ Institute of Musical Art, Széchenyi István University in Győr as a university professor. He was honoured with the Halász Ferenc Prize for his outstanding educational work in 2008. He earned his DLA degree in 2010. He is also known as the first artist to play the violin concertos of Tomasini, Kraus and Michael Haydn for Hungarian audiences. In 2012, he was awarded with the prize “For the Culture of Vas County”. In 2014 he received the Liszt Prize, and in 2018 he habilitated.