International Music Center named after Ferenc Liszt starts in China with the support of Liszt Academy

Negotiations are underway for a joint postgraduate program with The Juilliard School in New York, through which students would receive a dual soloist diploma. Meanwhile, a music institution has begun operating in the city of Wenzhou, located south of Shanghai, to which the Liszt Academy will contribute its name, expertise, and will provide visiting faculty members.

The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music already collaborates with several institutions, including the conservatories in Shanghai, Shenyang, Hangzhou’s Zhejiang, Guangzhou’s Xinghai, and the Central Conservatory in Beijing. The newly established International Music Center in Wenzhou now joins this network of partnerships.

Gábor Farkas and the head of the Department of Vocal and Opera Studies, singer Andrea Meláth, recently returned from the ceremonial opening of the institution. Speaking about the background of the future partnership, Gábor Farkas explained that during a one-month tour in China last summer, he was approached at the Shanghai International Piano Festival by a young Chinese man, Xu Dong Wang. Years earlier, Wang had graduated from the Liszt Academy in Budapest as a vocal artist, and he proposed a collaboration with the music center he had founded on his own initiative and with his own funds in Wenzhou. “He studied in Amsterdam and Vienna as well, but ultimately chose the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, and says he received much more during his eight years of study here than at other European institutions - that’s why he initiated the collaboration,” he added.

The music center was built in just a few months and features an impressive concert hall. With the approval of the Liszt Academy’s leadership, it now operates under the name Liszt International Music Center. Gábor Farkas also noted that the primary focus will be on piano and vocal instruction, with strong emphasis on solfège, the Kodály Method, and the piano schools of Liszt and Bartók. This will be supported by guest instructors from the Liszt Academy’s Department of Music Theory, Doctoral School, and Kodály Institute, who will teach at the center.

“Instrumental music studies is extremely popular in China, and the students are outstanding - many of them play such a repertoire in high school, or even as young children, that usually university students in the West do. However, in areas like solfège, there are noticeable gaps. Our aim is for this institution to function in the future similarly to the Juilliard branch in Tianjin - essentially as a preparatory division, so that students come to the Liszt Academy in Budapest with the necessary foundational knowledge,” emphasized Gábor Farkas.

Speaking about the vocal students, Andrea Meláth said that the institution will prepare them for the Liszt Academy’s admission process starting at the age of 14 or 15. They will also receive English language training, which is essential both for their studies in Budapest and for their future international careers. Regarding the method of preparation, she explained that, alongside the Kodály Method, the students will be taught through the works of Liszt and Bartók, as well as through pre-Classical, Classical, and Romantic repertoire.

A summer event series has also been launched at the Wenzhou Liszt Center under the name Liszt-Bartók Festival, with Gábor Farkas serving as its artistic director and Andrea Meláth also contributing to its organization. In this way, education will be complemented and strengthened by concerts, masterclasses, festivals, and potentially competitions. Farkas emphasized the importance of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music continually expanding its international partnerships. This new collaboration, along with the potential integration of additional Chinese partner institutions, will support that goal.

He also noted that the university’s secondary school, the Bartók Conservatory, recently launched a Chinese class in joint venture with the Chinese-Hungarian Education Foundation, opening up further opportunities for collaboration in the vast Asian country.

According to Gábor Farkas, Asia deserves close attention: in Japan, cooperation has a history spanning several decades - with partnerships involving universities in Tokyo, masterclasses in Gifu, and the Liszt Seminar in Sapporo. Now, partnerships are expanding in China as well, which will benefit the Liszt Academy by attracting numerous outstanding talents to study at the institution in Budapest.  “While serving on the jury of the recent piano competition in Aarhus, I encountered brilliant young Chinese talents,” he added. “Teenagers performing astonishing repertoires - of course, still unpolished diamonds, but their potential for development is clearly evident.” He emphasized that if many of them can be drawn to study at the Liszt Academy, they may later become “Liszt ambassadors,” like the young man who founded the Liszt Ferenc International Music Center in Wenzhou.