The Budapest Cafe Orchestra

In 2009 Christian Garrick established the refreshingly unconventional and snappily attired Budapest Café Orchestra with the intention to present a broad range of music from all over the world in the most entertaining and fun way.  BCO perform all their music from memory. Combined their trademark wit and charm, audiences are left tingling with warmth, delight and amazement.

BCO are one of the very busiest acoustic groups for me today playing an average of 75 shows per annum.  Since their inception they have recorded one album every year and in January 2025 made their 16th waxing Goulash Supernova.  BCO are frequent guests to BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.

Each member of the orchestra is a freelance musician in their own right.  Adrian teaches school-age musicians of all standards and is curator of the fabled Imperial Balalaika Orchestra of Overton. Christian is a professor of jazz violin at Guildhall School of Music, Royal Academy of Music, and Royal College of Music in London. Murray is one of UK’s most in-demand accordionistas often working with Opera North and The Haar. Kelly is a veteran bassist who was once a Vagabond of Northern Soul icons Jimmy James & The Vagabonds.

From a musical family with jazz and classical learnings Christian Garrick is musical director of BCO and his influences run far and wide.  He first discovered Hungarian and Romanian folk and gypsy music listening to Sandor Lakatos and Taraf du Haidouks.  Christian’s arrangements for BCO of Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Greig - the so called ‘squeezebox concertos’ - are rooted in BCO folklore.  His arrangements of traditional Gaelic tunes on the album The Gaelic Chronicles was met with critical acclaim with the likes of Cerys Matthews and Mark Radcliffe both championing the disc on their respective radio shows.  Christian is influenced by a range of fiddlers from Grappelli to Stuff Smith to Indian virtuosos L Shankar and L Subramaniam.  Nigel Kennedy, a sometimes collaborator with Christian on stage, described him as “one of my favourite violinists”.  Christian’s own unique hybrid playing style, sheer emotional passion and extraordinary improvisational abilities thrills audiences everywhere.