The author is a violinist, concertmaster of the Danubia Orchestra and a trustee of the Út a Zenéhez Foundation.
The financial crisis facing the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra makes a question particularly urgent today: what does an orchestra mean to the life of a city, a region, or an entire country? According to a report published by Telex on 8 October, the resources available to the orchestra could run out by the end of the month. A petition has been launched to save it. The initiative shows just how personally people feel about the orchestra’s future. [1]
It is relatively easy to express a symphony orchestra’s achievements in numbers: how many concerts it has given, how many tickets it has sold, how much funding it has received, how many people have sat in its audiences. The harder question begins where those numbers end: what remains of a concert after everyone has gone home?
A painting, a sculpture or a book remains in the world: we can return to it, look at it again, hold it in our hands. A musical performance is different. It unfolds in time, and once it has ended, the performance itself is no longer there. It may remain within us, but we cannot relive that exact moment. A recording can preserve a magnificent performance and bring it to new listeners. But it reaches us through microphones, mixing desks and loudspeakers; in the concert hall, we experience what happens together with the performers and the rest of the audience. In a study published in 2026, responses from 296 participants showed that people attending a live concert reported feeling more immersed than those watching the same performance via livestream. Researchers also examined the synchronisation of heart rhythms in a smaller sample of 82 people and found differences there too. [2]
The Performer’s Presence
The significance of live music is especially worth considering today, when artificial intelligence can produce a complete, fully arranged song from a single prompt. I could simply type: Write a cheerful, 93-second song about lángos — Hungarian fried flatbread topped with cheese and sour cream — in which I complain that there isn’t enough garlic. Give it a Latin feel with elements of Hungarian folk music, and the atmosphere of an Oscars gala — a grand staircase entrance and some flamboyant baton-twirling. The technical achievement is astonishing. But that is precisely what makes an old question newly compelling: what makes something art?
During my doctoral studies (DLA) in Pécs, I attended classes alongside painters and sculptors in which we explored similar questions. What makes an exact copy a work of art? Is technical mastery alone sufficient? Painting a photograph with photorealistic precision may demand exceptional craftsmanship, but does it produce a copy or a new work?
What makes the question especially interesting is that a new work of art can also depict something real, even with extraordinary accuracy. Where does the artist’s vision appear, their personal relationship to what they are showing? What does it tell us that a mere copy does not? In the performing arts, this question is particularly close to home: we bring written notes to life, yet every performance bears our own interpretation.
As musicians, we bring music to life through our own experience, attention and imagination. We feel it, we tell its story: the performance comes into being there and then. Audiences hear the music, but they also hear how we understand it. Meanwhile, we pay attention to one another’s breathing, movements and sound, responding to the room and to those who are listening.
According to a familiar anecdote attributed to Beethoven, playing a wrong note is forgivable, but playing without feeling is not. Accuracy, preparation and professional discipline are essential foundations. Yet the highest aim is still to make a performance extraordinary: to have something to say, and to say it with passion and courage.
The Measure
In the high jump, we can see the bar and whether an athlete clears it. The result of an artistic experiment cannot be measured so unambiguously. We should not have to justify the value of art in every instance by pointing to a benefit it produces in some other field. The creation of a new work, a fresh interpretation of an old one, or an exceptional performance can enrich our culture in its own right. We cannot know in advance which artistic initiative will prove important, nor can we expect every experiment to succeed immediately. This is why, alongside professional expertise, we need freedom, trust and the opportunity to take risks.
First Encounters
A child’s first encounter with live music carries a particular responsibility. They may discover something that stays with them for life, or that takes on a new meaning much later. In my experience, many people only begin to search consciously for their own cultural identity as adults. They form their own relationship with the experiences they have brought from home and school: what does an evening at the theatre mean to me? What kind of music am I curious about? Why do I want to go to another concert? A childhood moment of wonder can return at just such a time.
That is why an orchestra has an absolute duty to take its performances for children seriously. It cannot simply send out a duo or trio without a carefully considered programme, assuming, “It’ll do for the children; they won’t understand anyway.” Even a small ensemble can create an extraordinary encounter if it knows how to reach them. Children deserve the best we can offer: genuine attention, a thoughtfully conceived performance and musicians who are responsive to their curiosity and reactions. We, too, help determine what they take away and whether they will want to experience live music again.
In such a programme, a child can become a participant too: they can sing, play rhythms and, eventually, even prepare to perform with us. Once they join in making music, their attention and presence help shape the outcome. They must listen to others, and others must listen to them. They may discover that they are capable of something they could never have imagined, and that they have a place in the group. Out of that experience, self-esteem can grow: I can learn, I can develop, and I have something to contribute to the music we make together.
Resources invested in culture and education also develop a country’s human potential. Children can carry the attention, trust and cooperation they experience while making music together into their other relationships. That value exists in their own lives, regardless of whether they ever buy a ticket to one of our concerts.
Investing in the Future
As a member of Danmarks Underholdningsorkester, I also perform regularly in Denmark. My experiences there often remind me that prosperity is not simply a matter of income. It also depends on the quality of educational, cultural and community opportunities available to people. Across Scandinavia, I have found that these opportunities are not treated merely as privileges: they are widely accessible, with enduring institutional support behind them.
The legacy of Bartók and Kodály shows the timescale on which we should consider cultural value. What they created as composers, collectors and educators still shapes the way we hear music and think about ourselves. Its significance cannot be expressed by a snapshot of its commercial value. Yet this heritage does not preserve itself. “Culture cannot be inherited,” Kodály said; every generation must acquire the culture of its predecessors anew. That requires encounters, learning and living artistic communities. [3]
Economic research also draws our attention to connections that extend beyond the box office. A British analysis published in 2025 examines how publicly funded culture can support local development and the next generation of professionals. A study published the same year, covering cultural and leisure life in six Danish cities, considers not only economic effects but also what these activities mean for the people who live there. The value of cultural life is also reflected in its surroundings, in people’s opportunities and in their relationships. [4] Money spent on culture becomes an investment when it creates genuine value. Its significance may be far greater than any one year’s income and expenditure can show. It also helps shape the skills, opportunities and community ties we carry into the future.
I hope that those shaping the future of musical life also want to support this long-term process. It is impossible to judge an impact spanning generations by looking at a single year’s balance sheet. Yet the conditions that make it possible have to be provided year after year: children’s concerts need preparation; relationships with smaller communities need return visits; artistic experiments need rehearsal time; and access requires the right equipment and skilled people. All of this costs money. Predictable funding allows us to make long-term commitments and fulfil them responsibly.
At Danubia, I encounter every day the ways in which these ideas can become reality. Making music together, teaching and taking social responsibility are intertwined in our own lives.
The Music of Tomorrow
As a musician and a teacher, I have long been interested in how people develop a personal relationship with music. What makes a performance speak to someone? How can a person who has always felt like an outsider become a participant? Over the years, Danubia has become my artistic home in part because these same questions are central to the thinking of its artistic director, Máté Hámori. He considers the programme, the way we reach people and the human encounter as parts of a whole. This has led to initiatives through which we, too, have discovered new dimensions of our vocation as musicians.
Designing a concert for children is an artistic task in its own right. With our Kalandra Fül performances, for example, we must begin by considering how children of a particular age think, what holds their attention and what they enjoy taking part in. A story or a shared game has meaning only if it also brings them closer to the music. In Operation Opera (Az opera hadművelet), children can help shape the story and contribute their own ideas to the words of an aria. They become involved in creating a musical scene: discovering why what a character sings matters, and how music tells the story. [5]
Alongside these, we regularly visit schools with many other carefully devised programmes. There, just as in a concert hall, we have to think about the shape of the performance, how to engage the children and how they will participate. A school visit demands the same artistic standards, together with especially thoughtful educational preparation.
Shared Sound (Közös hang)
Közös hang is a collaboration between Danubia and the Máltai Szimfónia music education programme. Máltai Szimfónia continues to hold regular music sessions in disadvantaged communities. Through these sessions, we build personal relationships with the children and their teachers. We work towards shared artistic goals, rehearse together and perform together. As musicians, we bring our knowledge and our attention to these encounters, which take place both in the children’s own communities and before audiences in Budapest. Sharing the stage gives the children a new experience and gives audiences an opportunity to meet, through music, young people whose lives they may previously have known little about. [6]
I remember mothers moved to tears of joy at our Mother’s Day concerts in Tarnabod and Erk. For many families in these communities, even making ends meet is a daily struggle. Through Közös hang, the children can rehearse and perform with a professional orchestra — an opportunity they would be unlikely to have without the programme. As a father and a musician, I have been deeply moved by these encounters. The children make music with us, and that shared music creates a particular kind of joy and closeness. They bring their openness, their attention and their whole personalities to the music; preparing for our joint performances also calls for our knowledge and patience. Some of these children carry responsibilities that should belong to adults alongside their studies: running a household or caring for a family member. Amid family difficulties and financial insecurity, a regularly recurring opportunity to be seen, to learn and to rely on others can be especially valuable. Their continuing music lessons and our concerts together form part of a longer relationship. It matters enormously whether there will be another encounter, whether their learning can continue, and whether someone will notice when a child is struggling and be there to help.
This is where the sense of self-worth I spoke of earlier takes on its full meaning: I have a place where I belong; I can grow; I can count on others. Through regular encounters, that sense can develop into trust and an idea of one’s own future. A country’s well-being also depends on whether children growing up in disadvantaged regions have genuine opportunities open to them.
On Home Ground
Our relationship with concert-hall audiences calls for the same care. Symphonic concerts, performances for children and music-making together all raise the same question in different settings: how can we communicate in a way that gives music personal meaning for those listening? Throughout the orchestra’s activities, this is the connection we seek.
Being a good orchestra is the starting point. Building an audience and keeping it is at least as demanding: giving people reasons to return, to take an interest in an orchestra’s artistic thinking, and to trust it enough to come and hear a work they do not know. That takes time, and shared experiences that build on one another.
In this sense, an orchestra can become its audience’s home team. Evenings experienced together acquire a history, and returning takes on personal significance. Listeners may come to feel that this is their orchestra too: they care about it, have expectations of it and want to know where it is heading. We, in turn, discover through their attention and responses whether what we hope to convey has reached them.
Different orchestras can become the focus of such communities in cities and regions across the country. In Budapest, too, there are many paths towards different artistic approaches and audiences. Together, these bonds enrich Hungary’s concert life: the more places in which lasting relationships develop between musicians and listeners, the more people for whom music can acquire a personal meaning.
What It Takes to Carry On
Building and sustaining these relationships requires an orchestra to plan ahead, have time to prepare and pursue shared artistic goals. That is how we can become returning partners for schools, children and concert audiences alike. The commitments we make require the right resources, expertise and clearly defined responsibilities. Reliable funding allows us to continue, year after year, what we begin in a single encounter.
With Danubia, we want to help ensure that a person’s chance to encounter live music is not determined by where they live or how much their family earns, and that there is room for new artistic ideas alongside familiar works. Yet we live with uncertainty from one year to the next. It is difficult to know in advance not only how our programmes will be funded, but also whether the orchestra’s low basic salaries can be sustained in the long term. We build relationships intended to last for years, while often being able to see the conditions of our own work only a short way ahead. What is at stake in this uncertainty is also whether children, schools and audiences will be able to count on us in the years to come.
The question of the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra’s future is not simply about the budget for its next season. It is also about whether a network of artistic and human relationships, built up over many years in Pécs and the surrounding region, can be preserved. Decisions about an orchestra’s funding also shape the encounters, shared experiences and opportunities to learn that local people can expect in the years ahead.
Beyond responding to individual crises, the whole of Hungary’s orchestral life needs transparent criteria and stable, predictable funding over the long term. If allowing an orchestra to disappear comes to be seen as an acceptable solution, the future of many other orchestras will be at risk as well.
Sources
[1] Dániel Merényi, “Megszűnhet a Pannon Filharmonikusok” [The Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra Could Disappear], Telex / Karakter, 8 October 2026.
https://telex.hu/karakter/kultura/2026/10/08/pannon-filharmonikusok-a-szakadek-szelen-pecs-megszunes-hiany
SzabadaHang: “Mentsük meg a Pannon Filharmonikusokat!” [Save the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra!] — petition.
https://szabad.ahang.hu/petitions/mentsuk-meg-a-pannon-filharmonikusokat
[2] F. Carter et al., “Live music enhances self-reported audience immersion and physiological synchrony compared to live-streaming,” Scientific Reports, 30 June 2026 (296 questionnaire respondents; 82 usable ECG datasets).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-59372-3
Additional study: A. S. Becker et al., “Musician presence and its effects on physiological and psychological well-being in live versus livestreamed concerts,” Scientific Reports, 9 February 2026 (130 participants).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-38194-3
[3] Zoltán Kodály, “A kultúrát nem lehet örökölni…” [Culture cannot be inherited…], Magyar Kodály Társaság Hírei, 2018/4, p. 9 (print); original reference: 1944, Visszatekintés I, p. 156.
https://efolyoirat.oszk.hu/03000/03026/00038/pdf/EPA03026_kodalytarsasag_2018_4.pdf
[4] CEBR, “Public investment plays a catalytic role for the creative industries,” 24 April 2025.
https://cebr.com/reports/public-investment-plays-a-catalytic-role-for-the-creative-industries/
A 2025 municipal study of the value of cultural and leisure activities to residents and communities in six Danish cities:
https://www.kk.dk/sites/default/files/2025-04/2025-04-07%20rapport%20om%20kultur-%20og%20fritidslivets%20v%C3%A6rdi%20for%20borgere%20og%20samfund%20i%20kommunerne%20i%206-by-samarbejdet.pdf
[5] Kalandra Fül Festival and Az opera hadművelet (Operation Opera) — official programme descriptions published by Danubia.
https://utazenehez.hu/oldal/kalandra-ful-fesztival
https://www.utazenehez.hu/koncertek/az-opera-hadmuvelet-2026-10-18-100000
[6] Közös hang (Shared Sound) — Danubia’s programme description and a report by the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, 2 February 2026.
https://utazenehez.hu/szivugyeink/kozos-hang-projekt
https://maltai.hu/cikk/hir/5385
Gábor Tölgyesi, “Közös hang – amikor a zene valóban megszólít” [Shared Sound — When Music Truly Reaches People], Népszava, 19 December 2025.
https://nepszava.hu/3305595_kozos-hang-amikor-a-zene-valoban-megszolit
The scenes from the concerts in Tarnabod and Erk, and the accounts of the participating families, are based on the author’s personal experiences.