Tuesday, 21 September 2021 19:30

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

Programme:
Mozart: The Magic Flute – Overture K. 620
Mozart: Sinfonia concertante in E flat major for violin, viola and orchestra K. 364

INTERVAL

Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro – The Countess’s Aria from Act III: Dove sono i bei momenti
Mozart: Concerto in E flat major for two pianos K. 365

Performers:
Eszter Sümegi – soprano, Dalibor Karvay – violin, Volodia Mykytka – viola,
József Balog, Apolka Bonnyai – piano
Dohnányi Symphony Orchestra of Budafok
Conductor: Gábor Hollerung

What else could an international festival with the aim of creating a tradition choose for its opening concert than the works of the genius whose very name carries a message of God's love: Amadeus. In 1779, after returning to Salzburg from his travels in Mannheim and Paris, the young Mozart wrote two works for two solo instruments: the Sinfonia concertante in E flat major (a ‘marriage’ of symphony and concerto) for violin, viola, and orchestra, and the Concerto for two pianos, also in E flat major. In the former, he was able to take the viola solo, while in the latter he took one of the lead solos, while his sister took the other. The composer's deep grief at this time (the death of his mother and a disappointment in love) is reflected in the slow movement of the sinfonia concertante. Also in E flat major is the overture to The Magic Flute (1791), a Singspiel (or sing-play), which can also be interpreted as an allegory of ‘the human soul’s striving for inner harmony and enlightenment’ (D. Koenigsberger), and which sets the tone for the concert with its exalted style. The Countess's Act III aria from the opera buffa The Marriage of Figaro (1786) moves from disappointment and despair to the heights of rekindled love and hope. The concert is a collaboration between artists born in different parts of the Carpathian Basin, with pianist Apolka Bonnyai as artistic director.

Performers

József BALOG has given over 1000 concerts as soloist and chamber musician in more than 25 countries in three continents of the world. In addition to the standard piano repertoire, he enjoys playing lesser-known masterpieces, contemporary music, and jazz-inspired classical music, and has also premiered many works of contemporary music.

He is a regular participant in the Hungarian and international music scene and, in addition to performing, he gives masterclasses at prestigious institutions around the world. During his career he has performed with many great orchestras under the batons of such distinguished conductors as Gilbert Varga, David Nimrod Pfeffer, Zoltán Kocsis, Kristjän Järvi, Jesús Medina, and Vitaly Protasov.

His first solo disc ‘Hungaricum’ was the only CD to win the Liszt Ferenc International Grand Prize for Recordings in 2005, and his ‘Transcendental Etudes’ was named Record of the Month in June 2015 on allmusic.com, one of the most prestigious classical music websites. He was awarded the Liszt Prize in 2018 and the Lajtha Prize in 2019.

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.

The Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra is one of the most dynamic and multifaceted symphony orchestras in Hungary. Thanks to the Budafok-Tétény Budapest 13th district municipality, which maintains it, since 1993 it has been a professional ensemble, directed by Liszt Prize winner and Artist of Merit Gábor Hollerung, under whose baton the orchestra quickly carved a smart niche for itself on the Hungarian music scene, and in the last few years has become one of the leading ensembles in the country. Every since it began, the managing musical director of the BDO has been Gábor Hollerung.

The orchestra’s repertoire shows how versatile it is, ranging from the classics through contemporary and jazz to pop and film music, as well as productions combining the arts which regularly feature on the Müpa stage. The BDO is proud of its own big band lineup, the Golden Ball event, which conjures up the golden age of formal balls, the symphonic documentary about it entitled Life, Love, and Music, and the symphony concert-show Christmas Actually, which has filled the Papp László Sports Arena for several years. In 2009 the BDO launched a film music show called FilmHarmonic, which has now become one of the most sought-after symphony orchestra programmes on the Hungarian music scene. There is also enormous interest and full houses for Gábor Hollerung’s series Understanding Music, known for his clear and direct explanations. Hungarian audiences can also see and hear the orchestra as the accompanying orchestra for the talent-scouting programme Virtuosos.

Gábor HOLLERUNG was born on 18 August 1954 in Budapest. A holder of the Liszt Prize, he is a conductor, choral conductor, artist of merit, the managing musical director of the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra, the leading conductor of the Budapest Academic Choral Society, artistic director of the Zemplén Festival, founder and artistic director of the Budapest International Choir Competition, and founder and director of the Dohnányi Academy International Conductors’ Course.
He studied conducting and choral conducting at the Liszt Academy of Music, where his teachers were Zoltán Vásárhelyi , István Párkai, and András Kórodi, then later he continued his training in masterclasses with Eric Ericson, Kurt Masur, and László Somogyi.
Between 1979 and 1981 he was second conductor of the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra, between 1981 and 1983 he taught music theory, music history, and conducting at the Janus Pécsi Janus Pannonius University of Sciences in Pécs, and conducted the women’s choir there. From 2001 to 2008 he was the musical director, and later the artistic director, of the Honvéd Ensemble. From 1989 to 2000 he was chief conductor of the Budapest Dohnányi Orchestra, and since 2001 he has also been the orchestra’s managing musical director.
He is also an active conductor abroad. Between 2002 and 2005 he was the first guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and from 2002 to 2007 he was musical consultant to the Philharmonia Singers Tel Aviv. In addition to performing with many European orchestras, he has appeared as guest conductor with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan.
Awards: Artist of Merit (2015), Jerusalem Prize (2006), Liszt Prize (2004), Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (2002).

Dalibor KARVAY started playing the violin at the age of three under the guidance of his father. His grasp of the instrument led him to make several recordings for the Slovak Radio in Bratislava during his studies in Vrútky. After graduating from the Žilina Conservatory, where he studied under Prof. Bohumil Urban, he started a course of study at the Vienna Conservatory in the class of the renowned professor Boris Kuschnir.

His cooperation with orchestras makes for an impressive list: the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the National Theatre Orchestra Mannheim, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Slovak Radio, etc. As a chamber musician, Karvay has collaborated with excellent international musicians including Radek Baborák, Julian Rachlin, Wenzel Fuchs, Boris Kuschnir, Magda Amara, Stefan Stroissnig, and others.

Alongside his active concert career, Karvay has been a violin professor at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna since 2014. Dalibor Karvay won his audition for the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 2020 and was appointed first concert master.

Volodia MYKYTKA comes from a family of Ukrainian musicians, and was born in Lviv. He studied at the local music school, then at the Conservatory and later at the Warsaw Music Academy. He continued his studies at the Hanover University of Music. During his student years he won first prizes in numerous international competitions, including Weimar, Florence, Hanover, Osaka and Melbourne.

As a soloist and founding member of the Karol Szymanowski String Quartet, he has performed in more than 40 countries in prestigious concert halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Musikverein in Vienna, and many other major concert halls in Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. He has participated in the renowned Rheingau Musikfestival, the BBC Proms, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and the Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus. He is the artistic director of the ‘Szymanowski Quartet and Friends Festival’, founded in Lviv in 2008.

He has been honoured by the Polish government for his services to Polish culture and has received the Szymanowski Prize. He has performed with such distinguished chamber music partners as Oleg Maisenberg, Rudolf Buchbinder, Vladimir Krainev, Boris Andrianov, Agata Szymczewska and Lily and Mischa Maisky. He has also collaborated with the Lviv Chamber Orchestra and the Sopot Chamber Orchestra of Poland. He teaches viola and chamber music at the Cologne/Aachen University of Music and Performing Arts and gives master classes in Europe, America and Asia. He is featured on CDs released by Decca, Hyperion, Hänssler Classic and CAvimusic. He can be heard on numerous radio recordings as part of the ‘New Generation Artists Scheme’ for the BBC and on radio stations in Germany, France and Austria.

Volodia Mykytka plays a viola made by Hans Schicker (Freiburg) in 1983.

Eszter SÜMEGI obtained her diploma in opera singing from the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy in 1993 and has been one of the Hungarian State Opera’s leading soloists ever since, with more than thirty leading roles to her name in her career thus far. Her international career also commenced in 1993, when she sang the role of Ines in Donizetti's La favorite under the professional guidance of Luciano Pavarotti. In 2012, she became one of the first to be awarded the title of Chamber Singer of the Hungarian State Opera, which she won again in 2015. She has been a guest on many of the world’s opera stages, having sung at Berlin’s Komische Oper, as well as in Salzburg, Bregenz, Reykjavik, Toronto, Karlsruhe and Bellinzona, working together with some of the world’s leading singers, conductors and directors, including Christoph Eschenbach and Robert Wilson. One of the most sought-after concert singers, she has performed together with José Cura, Giuseppe Giacomini and László Polgár from a repertoire that includes works by Rossini, Brahms, Mozart and Verdi. Her Tosca has thrilled audiences in Vienna, Frankfurt and Toronto, and elsewhere, as has her Aida in Pittsburgh, Barcelona and Beijing. Over the course of her career, she has sung all of the main Puccini roles, and in more recent years has discovered the great roles of Strauss (the title role in Arabella, the Empress from Die Frau ohne Schatten and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier) and Wagner (Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Elsa in Lohengrin, etc.), which have met with unanimous acclaim from both the audience and within the profession. As Sulamith (in Károly Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba), she gave a portrayal that was a revelation, and her world-class performance in Die Frau ohne Schatten was hailed in the music press. In 2018, for her work she received the Kossuth Prize, the highest acknowledgement by the Hungarian State for work in the field of Hungarian culture.