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Zoltán Jeney, composer, professor at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, founder of the former Budapest New Music Studio, and member of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts, who passed away on 17 October 2019, would have turned 80 on 4 March.

In 2023, Hungarian music life will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the birth of Zoltán Jeney (1943–2019). Prior to the anniversary, UMP Editio Musica Budapest has now published the scores of three significant works for orchestra and chamber ensemble, with the support of the National Cultural Fund.

Zoltán Jeney, an outstanding personality in Hungarian composing, passed on October 27 at the age of 76.

He studied composition with Ferenc Farkas at the Budapest Music Academy, then continued his studies with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome in 1967-68. In 1970, together with Péter Eötvös, Zoltán Kocsis, László Sáry, Albert Simon and László Vidovszky, he founded the New Music Studio in Budapest, an exceptional workshop of experimental music in Eastern Europe. He began to teach at the Budapest Music Academy in 1986, between 1995 and 2011 he was head of the Department of Composition, and from 1999 to 2013 he was the head of the Doctoral School, influencing several generations of young Hungarian composers.

His works include all genres of music: His earned first international success with Soliloquium 1 for flute at the Gaudeamus Festival in Utrecht. Since the 1980s, his compositions have been regularly performed in Sweden, the Netherlands, North America and elsewhere. His main work is the three-hour oratorio Funeral Rite, which was completed in nearly twenty years, and was first performed in 2005 in full shape. His last great work, the cantata Aus tiefer Not, written on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, received the Artisjus Prize in 2018.

The Canadian Bozzini String Quartet presented Hungarian chamber music to the Montréal audience at three concerts in early April. Most of the works have been presented as first performances in Canada. Besides one work of older masters, György Ligeti and György Kurtág (… pas à pas – nulle part…), respectively, László Vidovszky (12 String Quartets) and Gyula Csapó each had a string quartet, and the last night’s program included three works by Zoltán Jeney.

This year the 23rd Ny Musik Festival in Boras is saluting the 70-year-old Zoltán Jeney with two concerts.

On 7 November the composer will play his piano pieces (Endgame; Movements of the Eye; maunderin tongue in a pounderin jowl), while on 10 November Something Round and Something Like composed for 25 strings, Something Lost (for prepared piano) and Something Found (piano, harmonium and chamber ensemble) from the series Something inspired by e. e. cummings’ poems will be presented. Both concerts are being held in the town’s 13th-century Caroli church.

The programme of the Budapest Music of Our Age Festival, being held for the 39th time this year, focuses on anniversaries of Polish and Hungarian composers. Besides works by Witold Lutosławski, born a century ago, and György Ligeti born 90 years ago, compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki and Henryk Górecki, who are celebrating their 80th birthdays this year, the 80-year-old Miklós Kocsár and István Láng, as well as the 70-year-old László Dubrovay and Zoltán Jeney, are being presented either for the first time in Hungary or in the world.

The Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Centre for the Humanities Institute for Musicology is organizing a conference on March 14th, 2013, to mark Zoltán Jeney’s 70th birthday. From 10 a.m. lectures will be given by Sándor Kovács, Szabolcs Molnár, Anna Dalos, Tünde Szitha, Balázs Déri and Zoltán Farkas on the composer’s works and the history of the New Music Studio. From 2.30 p.m. the conference will close with a concert featuring a selection of Zoltán Jeney’s chamber music works.