Finals of the Géza Gárdonyi Composition Competition A Zeneakadémia saját szervezésű programja

According to a 2005 national survey of readers’ favourite novels conducted by the TV programme Nagy Könyv (Big Read), which aimed to stimulate interest in reading, The Stars of Eger/Eclipse of the Crescent Moon received more votes by far than any other work of literature in Hungary, although the oeuvre of Géza Gárdonyi has far more to offer readers and, this time around, concertgoers, too. An exciting feature of the 2013 commemoration year marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of Géza Gárdonyi is the composers’ tender in which applicants were asked to work up oratorio arrangements for two Christmas-related Gárdonyi works, the poem Christmas Song and the stage play Christmas Dream. The three most successful works making it into the final are performed on the night before Christmas Eve, by way of the closing event of the Gárdonyi Commemoration Year.