Liszt Academy professors and student receive Artisjus Awards

Musicians were awarded by Society Artisjus (Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights) in popular music and classical music categories on 17 December at its head office. There were two types of categories: one for performing artists who put on and successfully perform contemporary Hungarian pieces, and one for music teachers, the latter of which was newly established to express gratitude to music educators, without whom it would hardly be possible to create and perform new Hungarian music compositions.

Artisjus granted awards to ten music teachers and ten performers in classical music and popular music categories on 17 December 2018. The bureau for the protection of authors’ rights wishes to thank committed distributors of contemporary pieces with these two types of awards. The awards attract a remuneration, and the list of awardees is compiled by a committee consisting of experts from Society Artisjus.

The Artisjus Performing Artist Award is for performers who focus on contemporary Hungarian musical pieces, and consider it their mission to introduce these works to a wide audience. 

The Artisjus Music Educator Award is for music pedagogists for whom it is a central part of their work to promote contemporary Hungarian music, and who consider it their mission to raise a new generation of musicians who are fluent in contemporary Hungarian music.

The following musicians won an award from among the instructors and students of the Liszt Academy:

Mihály Borbély: associate professor of the Jazz Department, and Kossuth Prize winning wind instrumentalist, who regularly holds master classes around the world. He is active in the fields of folk music, world music, jazz and contemporary music, as the leader or a member of ensembles, and as a soloist.

Béla Lattmann: professor of the Jazz Department, and permanent member of musician Zorán’s band, and the Horváth Charlie Band. He has participated in numerous international tours and has worked on over hundred recordings. He is a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic, and an Emerton, Artisjus, and Pro-Urbe Award winning artist.

Balázs Fülei: Franz Liszt Prize winning pianist. He is an instructor of the Liszt Academy since 2012, and Head of the Chamber Music Department and senior lecturer since 2015. He holds master classes all around the world, and he is the founder of the international Echo Summer Academy held annually at the Károlyi Castle in Fehérvárcsurgó, Hungary.

Zoltán Kocsis-Holper: conductor, solo singer, music teacher, and student of the Liszt Academy’s Doctoral School. He is the deputy choir master of the Hungarian National Choir, and art director of Kórus Spontánusz in Sopron and the Lajos Vass Chamber Choir in Budapest.  He is an artistic committee member of the Association of Hungarian Choirs, Orchestras and Ensembles (KÓTA).

György Lakatos: associate professor at the Liszt Academy of Music since 2001, and Head of the Woodwind and Brass Department. He was a bassoonist of the Hungarian State Opera between 1983 and 1989. He received the Liszt Prize in 1996, and the Bartók-Pásztory Prize in 2012. In 1991, he founded and has since been heading the Blue Bird Festival, a charity event held annually.

Judit Rajk: associate professor of the Church Music Department. Since 1998 she has been a member, and since 2009 the head of the supervising committee of the European Cultural Foundation, Budapest. As an oratorio, lied and concert singer she has regularly performed contemporary composers’ works, several of which were performed for the first time by her.

Dr Zita Darázsdi: She received a DLA degree in music teaching and choir conducting in 2004. Last year she was elected deputy headmaster of the Bartók Béla Secondary School of Music, Instrument Making and Repair, where she has been teaching since 2003. She is also a professor of solfége and music theory at the Liszt Academy of Music.