Bucharest to Host 20th Hungarian Music Festival

The 20th Bucharest Hungarian Music Festival will be held in the Romanian capital, which over the years has encouraged almost five hundred young Romanian performers to include works by Hungarian composers in their repertoire. The festival aims to prom

By: hungarytoday.hu

May 08 2024
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Bucharest to Host 20th Hungari

The festival aims to promote classical and contemporary Hungarian music and to discover and support young talents (18-35 years old), and will take place between May 12-16. The three competition days following the opening concert will feature 16 solo and duo performers.

“This year, Liszt will be the most popular composer, but our festival, which started 20 years ago, has now moved well beyond the Liszt-Bartók-Kodály trio, and increasingly features lesser-known Hungarian composers.

There have also been examples of contemporary composers writing pieces especially for the musicians performing at the competition.

It is an absolute success that there have been so many Hungarian Music Festival winners in recent years who have gone on to build a significant international career,” said András László Kósa, Director of the Liszt Institute’s Bucharest Center.

The young soloists and duos entered in the competition section of the festival perform a 20-25 minute program, at least one third of which must be based on Hungarian music.

The first three prizewinners will be offered concerts by the Liszt Institute in Vienna, Rome, and Budapest.

Since 2016, the jury has also awarded a special prize, the Lajos Bács Memorial Prize. The winner of the prize will be honored and rewarded with a full evening concert at the Institute in January next year, in memory of the composer, conductor, and mentor of the Hungarian Music Festival, Lajos Bács.

This year, the Romanian Artists’ Association is offering a scholarship to two young talents in violin, guitar, cello, flute, horn, voice, or percussion for the one-week IConArts Summer University in Transylvania in the summer of 2024. The public is also invited to vote, as it is up to the audience to decide who they will see and hear in a full-length concert at the Institute’s Christmas concert.

On Sunday morning, day “zero,” the Liszt Institute will open an exhibition titled “Hungarian Composers,” featuring ten tableaux of works by the ten Hungarian composers who have been played the most often in the history of the festival. The QR code on the panels will allow visitors to listen to a work by a composer, performed by former Hungarian Music Festival contestants.

On Sunday evening, the Radio Hall will host an exceptional evening of performances by Ana Silvestru, the first winner of the Hungarian Music Festival, and several guests: Matvej Demin, the first flutist in the history of the International Tchaikovsky Competition to win the first prize in this prestigious competition, pianist Giulio Biddau, Matthias Kessler, and percussionist Luca Staffelbach.

Stage of the Romanian Athenaeum concert hall. Photo: Wikipedia

The award gala and concert of the 20th Hungarian Music Festival will take place on Thursday May 16 at Bucharest’s emblematic concert hall, the Romanian Athenaeum, where the winners will be joined by the two talented duos from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, Anna Pintér (flute) and Luca Kovács (piano).

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