Liszt Academy concert programmes for January and February

An outstanding violinist with an exciting past, an Italian ensemble devoted to period instrument performance and the musical paradise of the 18th century: this is what the 16 January concert has to offer featuring Viktoria Mullova and the Venice Baroque Orchestra, who will be playing works ranging from pieces by major and minor composers of the Baroque period right to the two musical giants of the Classical era. The audience will also have the opportunity to listen to the Violin Concerto by the Venetian redhead cleric, Antonio Vivaldi.

The International Opera Exam Festival will be taking place between 18 and 22 January organised by the Department of Vocal and Opera Studies. Within the framework of this event, not only the operatic life of the Liszt Academy will be in the public eye but also that of its international partner institutions. In 2017, the exam performance of the Liszt Academy students „Sinister Romanticism" will be accompanied by Monteverdi and Händel’s opera excerpts interpreted by the students of the Royal Irish Academy of Music as well as by contemporary mini operas performed by the Academy of Music in Ljubljana.

One of the foremost acapella formation in the US, Chanticleer - visiting the Liszt Academy for the first time since 2014 -  are to focus on ever-green and inexhaustible themes in an utterly original manner. The ensemble which was established nearly four decades ago and has been awarded three Grammys so far will delight their audience with a programme ranging over various periods, genres, styles and nations.

Although considering the history of an ensemble specialised in contemporary music, it may sound somewhat pretentious to claim that “in the nearly 50 years since being formed they have written music history”, in the case of the London Sinfonietta it is an everyday practice. Their 9 February concert at the Liszt Academy will give a complex picture of the composers and pieces that are shaping British music in the 21st century.

Harriet Krijgh and István Lajkó’s chamber music recital will allow us to bear witness to the complementary match and intimacy of the cello and the piano as well as to the strong artistic collaboration of two highly gifted musicians. The Dutch cellist in her mid-twenties is one the most promising talents of her generation, while István Lajkó matches up with her owing to his already well-known artistic merits and in particular, to his intellectual and analytic interpretations.

When giving an account of his childhood music experiences, the Texas-born Jason Moran highlights hip-hop and the music of Thelonious Monk  as most influential.  He earned his degree in music at the Manhattan School of Music, his discography lists nine releases, he has collaborated in another thirty albums but is also active as educator and concert organiser.  This time, he will return to Budapest as a solo jazz pianist following the concert he gave jointly with the saxophonist, Charles Lloyd at the Liszt Academy in 2016. 

Cyprien Katsaris is one of those pianists who make decisive efforts to consciously pull down the walls between the performer and the audience and to establish an interpersonal relationship between them. The concerts delivered by this extraordinary musician with an unparalleled repertoire has a special significance, as in his early years, it was György Cziffra’s Liszt-interpretations that prompted him to become a professional pianist himself and at fifteen, he debuted in Paris playing Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy. Cyprien Katsaris, this world-trotter, will charm the Budapest audience with a surprise programme on 15 February.

Hungarian jazz fans may already be familiar with the Polish pianist phenomenon Leszek Możdżert, who is one of the most characteristic actor of contemporary European jazz music. For him this Budapest performance is not the first time, neither is the first occasion for one of the most prominent period performers, the Holland Baroque Society, as they have also played on the stage of the Liszt Academy before.  We cannot yet know how unconventional their Budapest performance will be this time, but Bach’s music – in one form or another - will definitely be featured in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy. 

The highly successful Complete Works Live concert series will draw our attention to Mozart’s piano trios. The interpreters of the pieces will be the Liszt Academy’s own great sons and daughter Vilmos Szabadi, Csaba Onczay and Márta Gulyás alongside Máté Szűcs, who all are connected to their alma mater with close ties. The concert featuring Mozart’s piano trios will be a unique kind of chamber music workshop, where also lay music lovers can participate in the artistic processes.

The Weiner Ensemble – third prize winner at the Orlando Competition (international chamber music contest) - became the centre of attention thanks to their unique programme and courageous and novel musical enterprises. Their instrumental arrangement fit to perform Schönberg’s song cycle Pierrot Lunaire, the so-called ’pierrot ensemble’ was already rather unconventional to start with. As also their 24 February concert programme confirmy, one of the main goals of this chamber music formation consisting of recent Liszt Academy graduates is to expand the 20th century chamber music repertoire and popularise these extraordinary pieces with as wide an audience as possible.

Tickets can be purchased for the forthcoming concerts in the ticket office of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre located in the main building at Liszt Ferenc Square as well as by clicking here.