ICMA has voted Swedish clarinetist Martin Fröst as their 2022 ‘Artist of the Year Award’ for his innovative global career, his impressive discography, and his philanthropy.
Szerző: Alexandra Ivanoff
Hearing Wayne Marshall perform on Müpa Budapest’s great organ on 8 February will completely rearrange your thinking about what the ‘King of Instruments’ is capable of.
Gabriel Prokofiev’s new Concerto for Viola was premiered on January 14th at the Bonn Opera House.
Now that he’s just turned 40, conductor Róbert Farkas is ready to take on the world – well, at least the world’s podiums. Since the turn of the new year, he’s already conducted two full concerts and is preparing two more with his MÁV Symphony Orchestra.
When listening to old recordings of pianist György Cziffra, one is transfixed at not only his extraordinary technique, but also his combination of fearlessness and sympathetic awareness of the composer’s most soulful demands. If any pianist now is to inhabit that same mix of incredible bravado, lyricism, and the occasional moody Hungarian brooding, it is János Balázs.
French conductor Laurence Equilbey is one of the lucky ones in the conducting world. Her domain is Le Seine Musicale, on the Île Seguin, an island on the Seine river between Boulogne-Billancourt and Sèvres in the southwest corner of Paris.
Pianist Géza Anda, was celebrated on the 100th anniversary of his birth, at the Liszt Academy on November 20.
Concerto Budapest Orchestra (directed by András Keller) has long deserved kudos for sticking their necks out to challenge the system to do what they feel is necessary for the survival of new voices.
During Müpa Budapest’s October Liszt Festival, two evenings – one in the Budapest Music Center (BMC) and the other at Müpa Budapest’s Festival Theatre — presented multiple premieres of brilliant new musical languages with bright new color spectrums, many of which explored the subterranean. Composers Péter Eötvös, Georges Aperghis, and Gergely Vajda, presented their scores in person, with only British composer George Benjamin in absentia. Younger composers were also on the docket: Balázs D. Kecskés and Francisco Dominquez also enjoyed world premieres. Eötvös’ Contemporary Music Foundation at the BMC presented a mixed bag on October 14, employing several young conductors…
Less than a week apart, two pianists detonated their surprise bombshells of keyboard genius on the unsuspecting audiences at MÜPA Budapest: Lithuanian pianist Muza Rubackyte and South Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son delighted listeners with superb musicianship and pianistic splendor on 30 September and 7 October, respectively. Ms. Rubackyte was the featured soloist with Concerto Budapest, led by Zoltán Rácz, performing the Budapest premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Piano Concerto (“Resurrection”), which was dedicated to the 9-11 tragedy in the U.S. The 45-minute score evoked the horrific attack on New York City’s twin towers, and its nasty aftermath of toxic dust,…
