Manchester Camerata presents Untold: Gábor Takács-Nagy

Manchester Camerata presents this brand new, short digital film paying tribute to the remarkable career and self professed ’beautiful life’ of its music director Gábor Takács-Nagy, who has led the orchestra since 2011.

Untold: Gábor is set to a soundtrack chosen by Takács-Nagy to underscore his story, intercut with video footage from his career past and present. In his own words, he reflects on the highs and lows, challenges and great achievements of his illustrious and colourful working life.

The film covers from his early start as a violinist aged eight – much to the delight of his parents who believed as an artist he would have a ’freer life’ - to his enrolment at the Franz Liszt music school in his home town of Budapest aged 18, leading to his highly successful life as both a violinist as part of his Takács Quartet – performing over 1000 international concerts in its 17 years and latterly, a successful career as a world renowned conductor and music leader.

Takács-Nagy opens up on the devastation he felt when he realised his professional violin playing days were coming to an end, before he embarked on a new path as a conductor. ’I was in Tokyo during a concert we played Bartok’s fifth string quartet and I found that I couldn’t use the whole bow. Later in the US during a concert, I found that I could use even less bow. This is one of the biggest defeats of my life.

’I stopped a concert and got up and left, it was like a nightmare. I was a kind of successful person that almost everybody liked and suddenly I found myself in a situation not playing very well and everybody is frustrated with me, even myself…but I was struggling and I knew it was not possible. We all agreed in our friend’s kitchen in 1992 that I am leaving the quartet – it was obvious – it was painful.’

Directed by renowned filmmaker and photographer Joseph Lynn, this is the third instalment in the Camerata’s Untold series, which first launched in 2020. Fusing music performed by Camerata musicians with film and original poetry, Untold explores and shares the individual stories of the orchestra’s ’nearest and dearest’.. Each film centres around a different person telling their own truth and each is bound by the same goal – ‘the healing power of music’ – a phrase coined by Takács-Nagy himself, and one which has both inspired the orchestra and his career to date.