Reconnections

His Excellency Ilan Mor, Israeli ambassador to Hungary, initiated the cooperation between the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance which manifested in a series of workshops each year with the participation of students and professors from the two institutions. The Reconnections project soon became one of the most important diplomatic events both in Israel and Hungary.

The aim of the project is the realization of a series of chamber music workshop and joint concerts hosted in Budapest and Jerusalem in turn. One of the greatest challenges of the project is that participating students and teaching professors meet for the first time at the beginning of the workshop, and thus the mixed chamber formations have a relatively short time to learn the musical pieces before performing at multiple venues with various audiences.

Our mission with this project is to embrace the similarities and differences of the two cultures, and to celebrate our mutual history by including composers and performing artists that the two countries consider remarkable.

The core concept of this cooperation is predetermined. However, the participating professors’ intention is to broaden the artistic spectrum in each turn with a new musical genre. The first round, initiated in 2013, emphasized the role of string chamber music, while the second round in 2015 highlighted wind chamber music. The musical repertoire has always been designed with the aim of incorporating the classical chamber music pieces complemented with Israeli and Hungarian contemporary pieces.

Participants also have the opportunity to visit the cultural heritage sites of the host city, further expanding the enrichment aspects of the project.

The brochure of the project in 2014 can be accessed here, the report from 2014 by clicking here.

The report from 2015 can be found here.

The brochure of the project in 2016 can be accessed here, he report from 2014 by clicking here.

 

The Hungarian side of the project has been supported by the Friends of Liszt Academy Foundation, the Weiner Foundation, the National Cultural Fund of Hungary, and the Embassy of Israel.