Three short pieces for viola da gamba will be premiered by Nóra Kallai at FUGA Budapest Center of Architecture on 4th December. The pieces dedicated to professor Joël Dehais were composed in 2008 and 2011.

The programme gives a selection of contemporary repertoire of the viola da gamba: besides works by Kurtág, László Sáry and András Soós will be performed brand new solo and chamber pieces by young Hungarian composers – Dániel Váczi, Péter Tornyai, Péter Zombola, Xénia Stollár and Georgi Sztojanov.

This book examines the impact place and displacement can have on the composition and interpretation of Western art music, using as its primary objects of study the work of István ANHALT (1919–) GYÖRGY KURTÁG (1926–) and SÁNDOR VERESS (1907–92). Although all three composers are of Hungarian origin, their careers followed radically different paths. Whereas, Kurtág remained in Budapest for most of his career, Anhalt and Veress left: the former in 1946 and immigrated to Canada and the latter in 1948 and settled in Switzerland. All three composers have had an extraordinary impact in the cultural environments within which their work took place.

György Kurtág’s recently finished work for nine instruments is performed by Ensemble Contrechamps on the 1st November together with the string quartet Officium breve in memoriam Andeae Szervánszky and works by Sándor Veress and the Swiss composer Roland Moser. The Brefs Messages op. 47 was commissioned by Contrechamps and dedicated to this ensemble and the conductor of the premiere Olivier Cuendet.

On 21 October the Ensemble Babel Lausanne will perform works by György Kurtág and György Kurtág Jr. in Budapest. The title of the program is “Found and invented objects” which is a reference to the core of Kurtag’s art that is the inspirations of the material and auditory world around us as well as of the canon of music. Also, the concert is the cooperation of the two rather different artists, father and son, which resulted in a piece composed as a joint work for string-quartet and synthesizer called the Zwiegespräch.

Five compositions will be performed by the Vienna ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Péter Eötvös on 8 October. The program is on the one hand dedicated to Ferenc Liszt who was born 200 years ago and on the other hand presents the prize winners of the Gustav Mahler Composition Competition and the Hungarian Music Forum.

The Hungarian born author, Bálint András Varga, who is a well known promotion manager in the contemporary musical world revised and republished his book twenty five years after the first Hungarian edition.

His three questions - related to the inspirations and the formation of one’s own personal style - were raised with the most important composers of the late twentieth century and of the last decade. Not only Boulez, Cage, Ligeti, Reich, Stockhausen and Wolff but several UMPC composers like Berio, Nono, Eötvös, Kurtág, Petrassi, Szőllősy, Xenakis provided their answers as well.

PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD and KLANGFORUM WIEN perform László Vidovszky's Reverb on 27 August in the program of Kunstfest Weimar. The work for piano and string quartet was comissioned as a part of the project „Visions" - a hommage to Franz Liszt.

Celebrating Liszt's 200th birthday Kunstfest Weimar comissioned seven new compositions by composers representing the seven most important countries in Liszt's life and work: Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Austria and Russia.

Between May 19th and 21st, solo and chamber works by György Kurtág will be performed at five concerts in Schwetzingen Castle near Heidelberg, which has for six decades traditionally provided a venue for early and modern music. Featuring in the programme are the string and wind movements of Signs, Games and Messages; the Messages of the Late R.V. Troussova; the Twelve Microludien; the Officium breve in memoriam Andreae Szervánszky; the Kafka-Fragmente; excerpts from the Series of Games written for piano; and Hommage à Robert Schumann, together with chamber works by Schönberg, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schumann – emphasizing the close relationship between the art of Kurtág and classical chamber music. Kurtág’s music will be interpreted by the most outstanding performers of the composer’s works, including Juliane Banse, András Keller, Tabea Zimmermann, Heinz Holliger, Jörg Widmann, Dénes Várjon, the Collegium Novum Zürich and the Hagen Quartet.

Balázs Horváth’s Divergent for trumpet and big band is performed by Croatian Radio Television Big Band conducted by Saša Nestorović on 13 April, organised by ISCM World New Music Days and Zagreb Biennale.

www.mbz.hr

THReNSeMBle (Artistic leader: Balázs Horváth) will participate at the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Amsterdam. Beside the works of Franco Donatoni, Theo Lovendie, Pierre Boulez and Yannis Kyriakides will be played Péter Tornyai’s Abfall-Musik, Zoltán Jeney’s Self-quotations, Balázs Horváth’s Waiting for... and László Tihanyi’s Summer Music.

The program of the competition is also performed in Budapest on 31 March and 4 April.

www.thrensemble.com