6 NOVEMBER 2025 (Thursday) 7:30 p.m.

FOURTH CARPATHIAN BASIN CLASSICAL MUSIC FESTIVAL - MOZART EVENING

Concert in memory of the festival’s dreamer and founder, Dr. István Bajkai

LISZT ACADEMY OF BUDAPEST CONCERT HALL

Programme:

Mozart: Piano Concerto in C major K. 467 2nd movement
Apolka Bonnyai – piano
Mozart: Concerto for three pianos in F major K. 242
Apolka Bonnyai – piano
Danjiel Detoni – piano
Boldizsár Csíky Jr. – piano

– interval –

Mozart: Requiem K. 626
Veronika Geszthy – soprano
Atala Schöck – alto
Botond Pál – tenor
Krisztián Cser – bass

King Stephen Oratorio Choir and the Saint Stephen Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Kálmán Záborszky

Artistic director of the festival: Apolka Bonnyai

At the memorial concert of the Fourth Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival, we remember the dreamer and one of the founders of the festival, Dr. István Bajkai.
The aim of the festival, launched in 2021, has been to present the diverse musical cultures of the peoples living in the Carpathian Basin and to strengthen their cultural cooperation. A key goal is to discover and support young musical talents. The tradition-creating festival offers a wide range of programmes: concerts, master classes, music history lectures, and a piano competition for young people living in the Carpathian Basin await the interested audience with beautiful experiences.
The creed of the Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival is that music penetrates seemingly impenetrable walls and brings people, communities, and cultures closer together.
At this concert dedicated to Mozart's oeuvre, the audience will meet two sides of the composer: his virtuosic liveliness and pure joy through his piano concertos, and his dramatic depth in the performance of his last work, the unfinished Requiem.
Mozart's piano concertos stand out among his works: his first notable compositions were written for wealthy Salzburg families, as was the only concerto for three pianos, composed in 1776 for Countess Lodron and her two daughters. It is rarely performed in concert halls due to its unusual instrumentation. The light and airy second movement of the preceding Piano Concerto in C major is one of the best-known melodies in music history.
At the memorial concert, the solos in Mozart's concerto in F major for three pianos will be played by Apolka Bonnyai, Boldizsár Csíky Jr. from Transylvania, and Croatian-Hungarian pianist Danijel Detoni, expressing the unity and solidarity of the peoples of the Carpathian Basin.
The Requiem, performed in the second half of the concert, is a painful lament, a renunciation of life, commissioned by an anonymous emissary in the summer of 1791. Although Mozart was unable to complete the work due to his sudden death, the poignant dramatic power of his music has made it one of his best-known compositions. A few days after All Souls' Day, this wonderful masterpiece will be performed in memory of all our departed loved ones. The orchestra will be conducted by Kálmán Záborszky, while the vocal solos will be performed by Veronika Geszthy (soprano), Atala Schöck (alto), Botond Pál (tenor) and krisztián Cser (bass).

Performers

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 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.

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.