Pannon Philharmonic

Róbert Farkas was born in Ózd, Hungary and grew up surrounded by various musical influences and traditions. From early childhood on he was exposed to the vivacious folklore of the Roma-music tradition, and to piano and solfeggio lessons from the Kodály method.
At fourteen he continued his musical studies at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Miskolc and in Budapest specialized in solfeggio, music theory and piano. From 2000 he studied conducting, choral conducting, music pedagogy with Tamás Gál and András Ligeti. In 2006 he was awarded an Erasmus scholarship which brought him to The University of the Arts in Berlin, where he continued his studies in conducting with Professor Lutz Köhler until receiving his degree in 2012. During this time he attended master classes by Péter Eötvös, Bernard Haitink, Gianluigi Gelmetti, and Jorma Panula. In 2011 he was the received the third prize, orchestra prize, and special award from the Croatian Composer’s Society (HDS) at the International Lovro von Matacic Competition in Croatia.

After his studies he became musical assistant at the working stage of the Berliner Staatsoper, where he participated in productions such as Shostakovich's "Moskau Tscherjomuschki", Hindemith’s "Didactic Piece" (Lehrstück) and performed the first piano part in John Cage´s Europeras 3&4 as part of the Infektion Festival. The second production of Wolgang Rihm’s Nietsche-opera Dionysos marked Farkas’s debüt in opera conducting at the Heidelberg Opera House (Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, Germany), which lead to a full time position as musical coach with conducting responsibilities. In Heidelberg he performed classical operas like Cosi fan Tutte, La Traviata, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and The Marriage of Figaro, and musicals such as "Cabaret", and in the Heidelberger Schlossfestspiele "Kiss me Kate." He also conducted contemporary works like the German premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’s "The Turn of the Tide" and the minimalist opera "Echnaton" by Philip Glass. Moreover, he worked as an assistant and co-conductor to Johannes Harneit in the world premieres of "Evenings at the River" (Abends am Fluß) and "High Tide" (Hochwasser) with Peter Konwitschny as director. He was assisting the world premier of Johannes Kalitzkes opera "Pym" with the staging of Johannes Kresnik. He assisted David Robertson and he prepeared the Gala-concert of the Echo-Klassik music award next to Pablo Heras Cassado. In 2013 he began to cooperate with the Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer at the Berliner Concert House Orchestra and has been assisting him since 2015 in productions there and also with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. He is currently working with the BFO, including their tours in Europe and Asia. 

Róbert Farkas has conducted the Berliner Concert House Orchestra (Konzerthaus), the Symphony Orchestra of Croatian Radio Television, the Berliner Symphonic Orchestra (Berliner Symphoniker), the Savaria Symphonic Orchestra and the Collegium Musicum Youthorchestra, Pommersfelden. He currently lives in Berlin.