Reviews

In the autumn of 2023, I spent three months in Chicago on a Fulbright Research Fellowship in the Music Department at Columbia College. My research focused on American jazz education and the work of William Russo, the composer, bandleader, and educator who founded the department.

Schumann’s Fourth Symphony in the original version of 1841 and the revised version of 1851: these are Florestan the Savage on the one hand and Eusebius the Mild on the other.

“Attila” in the Margit Island Theatre offered two debuts: the noted Canadian bass-baritone John Relyea assumed the title role, and on the podium, Hungary’s Martin Rajna, who was just recently appointed as the chief conductor of the Hungarian State Opera.

From 23 June 2023, the Styriarte Festival in Graz took place for a whole month, with programmes of various genres. I attended the first two days of the festival.

Müpa Budapest hosted “a really big” evening on May 13th featuring two debuts of two new masterworks, two trumpet stars, and the illustrious Prague Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrey Boreyko.

The retirement age in Hungary was 60 for a long time, but there is every reason to hope that the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra has no plans to retire.

In a special event at the Medgyaszay Hall of the Hungarian State Opera, Papageno presented a performance of Shostakovichs late masterpiece by the Juilliard-trained American bass Andrew Munn with the pianist Bálint Zsoldos on May 8, 2023.

This year’s ICMA Award Ceremony was followed in the evening by the Gala Concert in the Great Hall of the Witold Lutoslawski National Forum of Music (NFM) in Wroclaw.

1923 was a turbulent year in the western world. The ballooning US stock market fell dramatically and the extreme inflation that ensued caused an intercontinental crisis.

The Slovak Philharmonic, under the direction of Maestro Peter Valentovic, presented complex, lesser-known works by 20th-century composers Jacques Ibert, Paul Creston, the Slovak composer Eugen Suchon, and ending with a Maurice Ravel favorite.