Conductor György Vashegyi founded his own orchestras, the Purcell Choir, which specialises in the performance of early music, and the Orfeo Orchestra, which uses period instruments in its performances, in 1990 and 1991, respectively, and they continue to be prominent players in both the Hungarian and the international Early Music scenes. Over the course of his career spanning more than three decades, he emerged as a leading representative of the historical performance style in Hungary, simultaneously becoming an internationally recognised conductor and an outstanding artistic director in the Hungarian classical music landscape.

Since starting out in his profession, he has led several thousand concerts in the most important concert venues in Hungary: the Music Academy, the Hungarian State Opera, Fertőd-Eszterháza, and Müpa Budapest (and its Early Music Festival), in addition to being a permanent contributor to the programmes of Hungarian orchestras and festivals. He locates unknown works from the music literature of the past — primarily the Baroque, Viennese Classical, and Romantic musical periods; he also reconstructs sheet music and engages in the source criticism of the background information necessary for concert materials with scientific rigour. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Haydneum – Hungarian Centre for Early Music in July 2021, of which he has been the artistic director since 2023. The Haydneum is an institution that addresses a gap in Hungarian cultural life by not only presenting curiosities of Early Music but also creating significant value from both a scientific and international point of view.

Besides the research and performance of Haydn’s works and the musical repertoires of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that have Hungarian connections, a focal point of his work is the rediscovery of French — Baroque and Romantic — opera. Since 2012, he has developed a strong cooperation with the Baroque Music Center of Versailles in this field, as well as the Palazzetto Bru Zane, a research institution of the French Romantic period based in Venice, within the framework of which he purposefully blends lesser-known gems of the French Baroque and Romantic opera repertoires with Hungarian concert performances. Over the past decade and a half, he has conducted more than twenty concert performances and CD recordings of rarely-heard French operas, some of which had not been performed for centuries, with the cooperation of the Purcell Choir, the Orfeo Orchestra, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Hungarian National Choir (works by Boismortier, Cardonne, Cherubini, David, Gervais, Leclair, Lemoyne, Méhul, Mondonville, Montéclair, Rameau, and Stuck). He has completed the CD recordings of four full French Romantic operas with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra (Massenet: Werther, Lalo: Le Roi d’Ys, Thomas: Psyché, and Silver: La Belle au bois dormant); the quality of the last-published Lalo album (Le Roi d’Ys) was highly praised by leading international critics, who honoured it with the most important French awards for recordings (Diapason d’Or and Diamant de l’Opéra) and declared it the best performance of the masterpiece so far. With his orchestras he founded himself, he has more than seventy CD recordings to his credit, the two latest of which have also won several prestigious awards: the opera Les Boréades by Rameau, published by Warner Classics in 2024, received the Diapason d’Or award among others, while the album titled Jouissons de Nos Beaux Ans! featuring Cyrille Dubois achieved the ICMA (International Classical Music Award) in the best Baroque vocal recording category.

At the invitation of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, he was appointed the chief music director of the National Philharmonic in 2022; in this role, he aims to develop a concert programme that is built on national traditions but has international relevance as well. Under his direction, the programme policy of the orchestra became especially rich in Viennese Classical pieces, and the performance of important but rarely heard works was also given special significance. In his programmes, Hungarian classical music, celebratory and season-opening concerts received a prominent role; however, he made deliberate forays into the world of French Romantic opera as well. The — primarily French and Italian — operas, the concert performances of which were included in the opera season ticket of the National Philharmonic, fulfil a cultural mission, return a forgotten musical legacy to the audience, and bring international recognition to the National Philharmonic and the Hungarian National Choir.

György Vashegyi dedicates special attention to preserving the spirit of historical performance style even within the framework of orchestras that feature modern instrumentation; his programmes respect the Hungarian musical legacy and expand the musical horizon at the same time.
György Vashegyi received numerous awards and prizes over the past decades, which reflect the versatility and international recognition of his body of work: Ferenc Liszt Award (2008), Hungarian Classical Music Award (2009), the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit, civil division (2015). He also received a French state award in 2021; he was honoured with the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres distinction (Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature) for reviving the French Baroque and Romantic musical repertoire. In 2024, he received a renowned Hungarian state award, the Kossuth Prize.

He was the President of the Hungarian Academy of Arts for six years between 2017 and 2023, while also acting as the President of the Hungarian National Cultural Council between 2020 and 2023. György Vashegyi is not only a conductor but a Hungarian culture shaper as well, who interprets the past in the present with future-oriented sophistication.