Friday, 16 September 2022 19.30

OPENING CONCERT-HOMAGE À KOVÁCS DÉNES
Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music - Great Hall (1061, Budapest, Liszt Ferenc tér 8.)

Programme:

W. A. Mozart: Piano Concerto in A major, K. 414 - 1. Allegro
(Apolka Bonnyai – piano, conductor: Kálmán Záborszky)
W. A. Mozart: Violin Concerto in A major, K. 219 - 1. Allegro aperto
(Zsófia Mikolay-Lugosi – violin, conductor: Kálmán Záborszky)
W. A. Mozart: Symphony in A major, K. 201 - 3. Menuetto, 4. Allegro con spirito
(concertmaster: János Rolla)

INTERVAL

L. van Beethoven: Prometheus – Overture, op. 43
(conductor: Kálmán Záborszky)
L. van Beethoven: Romance in F major, op. 50
(Veronika Király-Lugosi – violin, conductor: Kálmán Záborszky)
L. van Beethoven: Romance in G major, op. 40
(Júlia Pusker – violin, conductor: Kálmán Záborszky)
L. van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, op. 61 - 3. Rondo. Allegro
(Kristóf Baráti – violin, conducted by Kristóf Baráti)

At the opening concert of the 2nd Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival, colleagues, former students and relatives pay homage to the memory of Dénes Kovács, the famed artist, winner of the 1955 London Flesch Competition, recipient of the Kossuth, the Liszt and the Bartók-Pásztory Prizes, the legendary professor and provost of the Liszt Academy. The backbone of the programme, which will also include talks and reminiscences, will be works by Mozart and Beethoven performed by the St. Stephen Philharmonic Orchestra. A former disciple of Dénes Kovács, János Rolla is the leader and the conductor is Kálmán Záborszky. Soloists are Júlia Pusker, violin, prize-winner of the 2019 Queen Elizabeth Competition, and relatives and disciples of Dénes Kovács: Veronika Király-Lugosi and Zsófia Mikolay-Lugosi, violinists, and Apolka Bonnyai, pianist. The movement from a Mozart piano concerto is a reference to Dénes Kovács’s talent in playing the piano: as a young artist he was such an outstanding pianist that it was hard to choose between the violin and the piano. The final piece in the concert is the 3rd movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, a piece often played by Dénes Kovács. It will be performed and conducted by Kristóf Baráti.
The programme will be presented by Tamás Zelinka, Managing editor of the music pedagogical e-journal, Parlando. Dr. Andrea Vigh harpist, president of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music will speak at the concert.

Performers

Kristóf BARÁTI was born in Budapest, but a large part of his childhood was spent in Venezuela. He began his violin studies at the age of five and already from the age of eight he made his first solo performances with the leading Venezuelan orchestras. At the age of eleven he was invited to Montpellier to give a recital at the prestigious "Festival de Radio France".

His studies continued in Budapest with Miklós Szenthelyi and Vilmos Tátrai in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Still a student, he won first prize at the Lipizer Competition in Italy and second prize in the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris. In 1997 he won third prize and the audience prize at the highly prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, being the youngest finalist.

After this success he redefined his violin technique in Paris with Eduard Wulfson, whose knowledge was influenced by great violinists of the 20th century such as Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Henryk Szeryng. In 2010 Baráti won the „Oscar of violinists”, the highly praised Paganini Competition in Moscow.

Kristóf Baráti performs in important concert halls around the world with major orchestras (Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Russian National Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Tokyo, Budapest Festival Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, etc.) and conductors (Masur, Janowski, Dutoit, Belohlavek, Kocsis,Gilbert Varga, Iván Fischer, Temirkanov, Saraste, Eiji Oue, Pinchas Steinberg, etc.).
His chamber music partners have included Natalia Gutman, Gábor Boldoczki, Evgeniy Koroliov, Enrico Pace, Zoltán Kocsis, Mischa Maisky, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet,Kim Kashkashian, Dénes Várjon, István Várdai, Nikolai Lugansky, Ning Feng, to mention just a few. He performs regularly with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra both in Russia and on tour around the world including in the US and China. He appears every year at the White Nights Festival and in 2019 made his debut at the Seattle Chamber Music and Aspen Festivals. In 2016 he made a sensational debut at the Verbier Festival when he performed the complete solo Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, and has since been back every year.

In 2009 and 2010 he recorded the first two Paganini concertos and Bach's complete music for solo violin for the Berlin Classics label. His recording of the ten Beethoven violin-piano sonatas with Klára Würtz was released by Brilliant Classics in 2012, the recording of all six solo sonatas of Ysaye in 2013, that of the three Brahms sonatas (also with Klára Würtz) in 2014. His CD with the Korngold Violin Concerto and Violin Sonata was released in 2015, the integral of Mozart works for violin and orchestra (Brilliant Classics) in 2016. His CD "The Soul of Lady Harmsworth" released by the Hungaroton label features famous encores. His latest CD recorded with pianist Klára Würtz features French violin-piano sonatas.

Kristóf Baráti has received several awards, including the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious award of his native Hungary in the domain of culture. He is, together with the cellist István Várdai, artistic director of the Kaposfest International Chamber Music Festival in Hungary.
Kristóf Baráti plays the 1703 "Lady Harmsworth" made by Antonio Stradivarius, kindly offered by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.

Veronika KIRÁLY-LUGOSI was admitted to the Exceptional Talents Department of the Liszt Academy of Music at the age of 10. She graduated as a violinist in 2003 as a student of Professor Dénes Kovács.

In 2000 she was accepted to the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and in 2001 she was awarded the Hungarian Republic Scholarship. In the same year, she was invited by the Liszt Academy of Music to represent Hungary at the 9th Kyoto International Music Festival, where her performance was recorded on CD.

She was able to develop her skill under the direction of such famous artists as Isaac Stern, György Pauk, Dora Schwarzberg, Igor Ozim, and Michael Frischenschlager. In 2010, she was invited by the Lausanne Music Academy to participate in the master class of Pierre Amoyale, a student of Jasha Heifetz.

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Zsófia MIKOLAY-LUGOSI  she started playing the violin at the age of six as a pupil of Mrs. József Horváth, then became a student of László Dénes, associate professor and head of department at a music college. In 1995 and 1998 she won first prize and was awarded a special prize at the national competition in memoriam János Koncz. In 1999, she won two special prizes at the National Ede Zathureczky Violin Competition, in addition to the first prize. Pál Károlyi, Erkel Ferenc Prize-winning composer, composed for her his work entitled "...like fireflies in the night". In addition to numerous performances in Hungary, she has also appeared abroad as an invited guest soloist: in 1997 in Germany and Canada, and in 1999 in Switzerland at the Tibor Varga Festival in Sion. In the same year she was accepted to the Department of Extraordinary Talents at the Liszt Academy of Music, where she became a student of violinist Dénes Kovács. In 2000 she won second prize at the Čírenie Talentov international violin competition. In 2017 she gave several concert performances in New York. At the international music competition organised by Danubia Talents in 2018 in Rome and in 2020 in Vienna, she was awarded second place, and as a special prize she gave a recital in Rome at the Hungarian Academy. She is currently studying at the Liszt Academy of Music in the violin class of Péter Kováts and Kristóf Baráti.

Described by the Strad Magazine for her “magical simplicity” and true “aristocrat” by La Libre of the violin, Júlia PUSKER came to international attention in her prizewinning performances at the prestigious 2019 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels. Highlights in the 2021/22 season includes concerto appearances with Belgian National Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and London Mozart Players. She has given recitals and taken part in festivals and masterclasses across Europe, including Besançon Music Festival, IMS Prussia Cove, the Holland International Music Sessions, Kronberg Academy and Santander Festival Academy. Alongside her success at the Queen Elizabeth Competition, Pusker has been a recipient of various notable prizes, such as the renowned Junior Prima Prize and Cziffra Festival Prize in Hungary, honouring the country’s finest young musicians. Born into a family of musicians in Hungary, Júlia began her musical education at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest before moving to England to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London with György Pauk, where she received her Master of Music degree with distinction in 2016. Between 2016 and 2021, she was Artist-in-Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels, working with Augustin Dumay. Júlia plays a Matteo Goffriller violin from 1690, kindly on loan by the Michael Guttman Collection.

János ROLLA founding member, artistic director and leader of the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra. He graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest in 1969 as a student of Dénes Kovács. In the same year he won third prize at the Hungarian Radio Violin Competition. From 1967 to 1974 he was a member of the Hungarian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra. He is well known in concert halls around the world primarily as a chamber musician, with Maurice André, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Alexander Schneider, Henryk Szeryng and Tamás Vásáry among his partners. For his achievements in promoting Hungarian music culture at home and abroad, he has been awarded the title of Meritorious Artist, the Ferenc Széchényi Medal, the Kossuth and Bartók-Pásztory Prizes, and the Hazám (My Country) Prize, which is awarded by the 21st Century Society in recognition of lifetime achievements of value and inspiration. In 1991, the French government awarded him the Knight of the Order of Honour in the arts category, and in 1994, President Árpád Göncz awarded him the Central Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. In 2004, he was awarded the Central Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary with the Star. 

Apolka BONNYAI started playing the piano at the age of 10 with teacher Ella Miklósné, then continued her studies at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in the class of Katalin Schweitzer and Gábor Eckhardt. She graduated as a pianist in 2001 from the Liszt Academy of Music under the tutelage of Balázs Szokolay, András Kemenes and Dénes Várjon, and received her DLA degree in 2013.

She has won numerous scholarships and international music competitions. As a winner of the Grand Prize Virtuoso and the Golden Classical Music Awards international music competitions, she has performed at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and Carnegie Hall in New York. Winner of the Weingarten Fellowship, she studied at the Birmingham Conservatoire with Professor Malcolm Bilson, and then at Montclair University in the United States under David Witten and Mark Pakman, with the Terplan Research Fellowship.

She performed with great success at the 9th Kyoto International Music Festival in Japan, which was recorded on CD. Other festival invitations include the Yamaha Artist Liszt Festival and the Hungarian Arts and Humanities Festival in New York, as well as the Cziffra Piano Festival. She has participated twice in the V4 Piano Festival in Sárospatak, where she was also artistic director in 2019.

She has performed as a soloist in prestigious venues such as the Palace of Arts, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wiener Konzerthaus, the Mozarteum, the Alti Hall and many other concert halls in Europe and America. She regularly makes recordings in the Márványterem of the Hungarian Radio.

Since 2001, Apolka Bonnyai has been a piano teacher at the Szent István Király Music Secondary School.

She is the founder and artistic director of the Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival.

Kálmán ZÁBORSZKY comes from a family of musicians. He was born in 1947, and his father, József Záborszky, was a conductor and a composer. His first instrument was the cello, beginning under the tutelage of Miklós Zsámboki. He graduated as a cellist at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. His professors were Frigyes Sándor, András Mihály and Antal Friss. He continued his studies at the Academy of Music in Vienna where he was able to study with the great cellist-professor André Navarra.
He was the director of the St. Stephen School of Music for 25 years. He established a unique orchestral workshop there, inspiring generations of young musicians and directing a great number of students towards high culture.
He started playing in the school orchestra (called István Orchestra at the time) at 14, and since 1988 he has been its leading conductor. The orchestra became a professional ensemble in 2006, named Zugló Philharmonia.
The symphony orchestra has given concerts in several countries. In 2013 they played in Berlin at the Young Euro Classic Festival, and a year later they gave a Hungarian programme with enormous acclaim in the Pozsony (Bratislava) Vigadó. The orchestra has also appeared in Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Austria. Recordings conducted by Kálmán Záborszky have been broadcast by the BBC and Euroradio.
Kálmán Záborszky considers it his main mission to enhance the complex art education of children. In addition to several concert series, in 2011 he started a unique programme aimed at schoolchildren, together with musicologist Emőke Solymosi Tari. This is a series encompassing music and other forms of art called “Expedition”.
Záborszky became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts in 2012.
His work has been acknowledged with several prizes over the years. He received the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic in 2006. One year later he was awarded a regional Prima Primissima Prize. In 2012 he received the Ferenc Liszt Prize. Since 2015 he has been a Merited Artist of the Hungarian Republic and since March 2018 he has been an Eminent Artist of Hungary.
The Zugló Philharmonia changed its name in December 2020 to St. Stephen Philharmonic Orchestra, and .their new sponsor is Philharmonia Hungary. Kálmán Záborszky is still the artistic director and leading conductor of the ensemble.

Tamás ZELINKA music educator, music educationalist, editor-in-charge of the online music education magazine Parlando, former senior advisor.
He graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music as a teacher of double bass, musicianship and primary school music. Between 1975 and 2008, he was Senior Advisor to the Department of Cultural Affairs of the Budapest City Council and then to the Cultural Affairs Department of the Mayor's Office, where he was responsible for music education and music and cultural affairs in Budapest. Since 1972, he has been editor and since 1990 editor-in-chief of the music education magazine Parlando, published by the Hungarian Musicians' and Dancers' Trade Union, and since 2012 of the online magazine parlando.hu. He has given more than 6,000 educational lectures in Budapest and all over the country: he has been a lecturer and presenter at concerts of Philharmonia Hungary in Budapest; and in the countryside, at concerts of the Dohnányi Ernő Symphony Orchestra of Budafok, the Duna Symphony Orchestra and the Szent István Philharmonic Orchestra, at the József Attila Free Seminar of the Budapest Kossuth Club. He regularly participates in music education programmes of the cultural centres of Budapest. His work has been recognised with numerous awards, including the Prize for Popular Culture (1994), the Artisjus Prize (2007, 2019), the János Csere Apáczai Prize (2009), the Miklós Bánffy Prize (2011), the KÓTA Prize (2020), the Hungarian Prize for Arts Education (2021), and in 2018 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of Hungary.

The Zugló Philharmonia changed its name in December 2020 to St. Stephen Philharmonic Orchestra, and their new sponsor is Philharmonia Hungary. The 66-year old symphonic orchestra was founded by József Záborszky, and he passed it on to his son, Kálmán Záborszky, who became its artistic director. For their work in establishing values and educating the young, they were awarded the Hungarian Heritage prize in 2000. Between 2011 and 2017 they gained the title National Youth Orchestra every year.