On Sunday 27 October, the festival Musique d’aujourd’hui à demain, the contemporary music festival of the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra, ended at the Chagall Museum in Nice. For this important occasion, two Italian musicians were invited: the conductor Andrea Vitello and the composer Alessio Elia. The concert program consisted of the Octets for wind instruments by Stravinsky, Péter Eötvös and Elia himself, performed by the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vitello.

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.

Pianist Márta Kurtág, György Kurtág's wife, his companion of inspiration and creation, passed away on October 17, 2019. She was 92, of which she spent 72 years on the side of her husband. She was the first critic of every composition in progress, the first consultant of every single musical idea, and a performing partner in Kurtág's piano works for solo and duet.

We bid farewell to the composer Miklós Kocsár, a teacher of generations, and a respected figure in the musical public life, who passed at the age of 86. His career began with chamber music, especially music for wind instruments.  He wrote songs, cantatas, masses, oratorios, orchestral pieces and solo instrumental pieces, while a considerable proportion of his œuvre consists of choral compositions. His works are sung worldwide; he was a celebrated composer for choirs, guest of honour at choir competitions. Many of his choral pieces were composed to verses by Hungarian poets; at different periods of his life, the works of different poets have occupied his attention. He composed his works for children's choir to verses by Sándor Weöres; in his pieces for female and mixed choirs, he has used verses by Gyula Juhász, László Nagy, Imre Csanádi and Sándor Kányádi, among others.  Characteristic features of his compositions are his quest for beauty of sound and his insistence on strict formal proportions.

Máté Balogh's Alabama March was commissioned by the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra of Alabama. The premiere will take place on September 27, 2019, in Huntsville. We asked the composer about composing for orchestra, his relationship with tradition, and the meeting of different cultures.

The J. F. Kennedy Center of Washington D.C., among other Hungarian artists, awarded György Kurtág this year's Gold Medal for the Performing Arts. Deborah F. Rutter, president of J. F. Kennedy Center, emphasized at the ceremony, held at the US Embassy in Budapest, that György Kurtág's music influenced people across continents.

Dortmund Konzerthaus celebrates György Kurtág in five concerts between 2 and 6 February 2020. The series Zeitinsel (Time Island) reviews the output of “the last living great composer of the 20th century.” Besides vocal and instrumental chamber music, the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Orchestra performs Grabstein für Stephan, a work for guitar and instrument groups, as well as Stele for big orchestra. Such experienced performers of Kurtág’s music will contribute as the Arditti String Quartet, playing four quartets by Kurtág, or Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who blends piano pieces of the Games with Bach. Caroline Melzer will sing Scenes from a Novel and other songs.

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.

Four months after its premiere in La Scala, on March 6, Kurtág’ Fin de partie was revisited in the Dutch National Opera. The cast was identical with that of the world premiere: Frode Olsen (Hamm), Leigh Melrose (Clov), Hilary Summers (Nell) and Leonardo Cortellazzi (Nagg); the Nederlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by Markus Stenz, the performance was directed by Pierre Audi.

In 1933, at the time of the Great Depression, Hungarian musician Rezső Seress wrote the hit Gloomy Sunday, which soon became world famous. In connection with the adhering urban legends, the song is known as a Hungarian Suicide Song. The title of this song was borrowed by Gergely Vajda’s new orchestral composition, which was premiered on February 11 by the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Budapest Academy of Music.