Ágnes Herczku & Friends A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

There is little need to introduce the oeuvre of Ágnes Herczku since she is a leading figure on the Hungarian ‘ethno-contemporary’ music scene. Ethno, because her toolbox is founded on traditional folk singing; contemporary, because she persists in seeking those points of reference deriving from the genre and inherent in its sung characteristics; both in her own productions and as a partner. Her art is constantly tracked and she most recently received the prestigious Liszt Ferenc Prize, in 2016. The pioneering undertaking she launched in 2007 continues: this is when her album Bartók Béla: Hungarian Folk Songs for Voice and Piano (editor: L. Kelemen) was released; a few years later, some of this material was used to stage a concert and dance house series titled A Few Songs. As concerns handling folk songs, Bartók wrote about the special character of them thus: “We must penetrate into it, feel it, and bring it out in sharp contours by the appropriate setting.” Now Herczku assists in bringing out this sharp contour not only through the intonation of folk singing but also with a new idea: the arrangement for cimbalom of works originally written for piano.