Flutist and conductor Pál Németh earned his diplomas at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1972 and 1975. As one of the pioneers of the early music movement in Hungary, he founded several early music ensembles: the Szombathely Early Music Ensemble (1978), Capella Savaria (1981), and today he serves as conductor of the Budapest Chamber Opera (1993), the Central European Baroque Orchestra (1998) and the Savaria Baroque Orchestra (1999). He is a regular guest conductor of the Accademia Santo Spirito Torino and the Milano–Torino (Mi-To) International Festival, and artistic director of the Baroque Festival of the Bükk Art Days (2013). He has made roughly 150 CD and DVD recordings, five of which have won the “Record of the Year” award. He has toured in almost every country in Europe, in North and South America, and in Israel.
His primary research field is the history of music in Hungary, which includes not only Hungarian music but also the works of foreign musicians who were active on Hungarian territory, such as Joseph and Michael Haydn, Wenzel Pichl, and Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf. His aim is to rediscover and present the unjustly forgotten gems of past centuries’ musical literature; his recordings and concerts are closely connected to this theme, such as The Birth of the Verbunkos, The Music of the Franciscan Order in Hungary, The Music of Pécs Cathedral, Musical Memories of Pressburg, Pál Esterházy: Harmonia Caelestis, Antonio Caldara: Saint Stephen, the First King of Hungary, and The Musical Collection of the Bodajk Pilgrimage Shrine.
With the Budapest Chamber Opera he directs both small-cast chamber operas and larger-scale productions – including all of Monteverdi’s stage works, as well as operas by Händel, Haydn, Mozart, Pergolesi, Galuppi, Telemann, and Gluck – as its permanent conductor. He is a regular guest of the Baroque Theatre of the Royal Palace of Gödöllő. His name is associated with the Hungarian State Opera’s premieres of Vivaldi’s Farnace and Mozart’s L’oca del Cairo, ossia Lo sposo deluso.
In recent years, several of his books have been published by various publishers, all accompanied by CDs (For Wine Drinkers, Healing Saints, The Treasures of Pécs Cathedral). Between 1975 and 2001 he worked as a teacher at the Szombathely Secondary School of Music. In recognition of his artistic achievements, he received the Liszt Prize in 1991, the Hungaroton Prize in 2001, the Hungarian Order of Merit – Knight’s Cross in 2022, and the Artist of Merit award in 2023.