Thanks to the conscious improvement process of the past 20 years, the Pannon Philharmonic has grown into one of the elite ensembles in Hungary. As the resident orchestra of the Kodály Centre, New professional opportunities have emerged, one of the most important of which was opening up to the international scene and expanding international relations. This has been carried out to ensure the representation of Hungarian music and art at the highest possible level in Hungary's strategic partnerships.

With the concerts in Türkiye, our orchestra has the opportunity to present itself to the Turkish audience with an exciting programme at two of the country's most prominent concert venues in Istanbul and Ankara. The featured composers, Bartók and Saygun and the performers themselves put on display a living and forward-looking relationship between the two cultures, based on which further links can be built and discovered between Hungary's and other peoples' music cultures.

The audiences of the Turkish concert halls can be assured that Hungarian symphony orchestras are capable of world-class productions. The concert will feature well-known works by Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók, as well as by the "Turkish Kodály Bartók", Ahmet Adnan Saygun: his Symphony No. 5. Saygun was not only a friend of Bartók's, but also a companion during his folk song collection trips in Türkiye. His life coincided with Türkiye emerging from the Ottoman Empire and being re-organised according to Western principles.   Saygun earned imperishable merits in making Western classical music known in his homeland and in setting up and organising music education. At the same time, he was also passionately keen on the research and use of Turkish folk music in his works. He turned into the national composer of modern Türkiye while being acknowledged also in Europe and the US. This night will feature his and his friends' music alongside each other. A curiosity of the event is that the uncle of the mezzo-soprano starring as Judit, Atala Schöck's, father, a professor of Turkology, Dr László Rásonyi, once headed the Hungarology Department of the University of Ankara, and he was the one who invited Bartók to collect Turkish folksongs in the country.