Three new sites hosting the international programme series Bartók 135

Within the framework of the international programme series Bartók – 135, Gábor Eredics, a professor and two folk music students Luca Turi (violin) and Zalán Csenki (cobza) of the Liszt Academy as well as the members of the Vujicsics Ensemble were welcomed by the Folk Music Department of the Faculty of Music at the University of Arts in Belgrade. At the intensive two-day folk music workshop, the participants had the opportunity to study the Serbian and Hungarian wealth of folk music by using Bartók’s Serbian folk music collections in the Banat as a cornerstone of their reflections.  The course was concluded with a passionate, spellbinding joint concert hosted by the Collegium Hungaricum in Belgrade.

László Borbély was assigned by the Liszt Academy to Geneva to hold a masterclass to the students of the Haute École de Musique de Genève. The curriculum of the course encompassed – beside Bartók’s own compositions – the piano works of Ligeti and Kurtág revealing Bartók’s influence and musical legacy in the works of these prominent followers.

Subsequently to his presentation in The Hague, on 21 November, the director of the Bartók Archive, the musicologist László Vikárius gave an overview of Bartók’s oeuvre to the students and academic staff of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels by reflecting on the main stages of the composer’s life, folk music collections and research activity. The presentation was followed by the gala concert in two parts given by Katalin Kokas and Barnabás Kelemen performing 44 duos for two violins and Sonata for Solo Violin (Barnabás Kelemen) in the grand hall of the conservatory. 

The delegation of the Liszt Academy welcomed not only local visitors but also the students and teachers of its partner institution, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance (JAMD) with a colourful programme also in Israel. The head of the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and also of the Folk Music Department of the Liszt Academy, Pál Richter addressed the main aspects of Béla Bartók’s musical legacy, accompanied by Gergely Kovács, one of the most exceptionally gifted students of the Budapest Liszt Academy. On 20 November, at the weekly department forum of the partner academy, Pál Richter gave a lecture on the folk music roots of Bartók’s compositions with piano demonstrations by Gergely Kovács. On the subsequent two days, Prof. Richter held a workshop on Bartók’s oeuvre and its imperative implications for the students of the multidisciplinary training programme of JAMD as well as for the institution’s composition and music theory students. Besides two Bartók-pieces (Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs, Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1), also Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and the four-hand piano version of three Hungarian Dances by Brahms got to be played at the closing gala concert on 23 November. The pieces were performed by the Head of the Keyboard Department of JAMD, Ron Regev, Geregely Kovács and a violinist of the local partner institution. 

Click here to read more about the programme series and its sites.