The first sites of the international programme series Bartók 135

The first three sites of the programme series held within the framework of the Bartók Year celebrating the 135th birthday of Béla Bartók and jointly organised by the Liszt Academy of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade were Tokyo, Helsinki and Zagreb.
 

In Japan, it was Tokyo University of Arts (Geidai), a long-time partner of the Liszt Academy that hosted the events that were to honour this Bartók anniversary by presenting two of the significant cornerstones of the composer’s work: folk music and the piano. The Head of the Keyboard and Harp Department of the Liszt Academy, Kálmán Dráfi accompanied the participants of his masterclass to the world of Bartók’s piano pieces, while the folk music section of the event was run by one of our young folk plucked instruments instructors, László Szlama. He offered an „interactive glimpse” into the vast folk music material that essentially determined Bartók’s work and whose basic knowledge is an indispensable ’must’ for the well-verged interpretation of his compositions. In addition to the detailed theoretical lecture, - much to the delight of the Japanese students - also short instrumental inserts and folk dance instruction rendered the event even more vivid.  At the closing concert, a former student of the Liszt Academy, Kenji Watanabe (now a well-established and acclaimed piano professor in Japan) played Bartók’s Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs, then the composer’s emblematic piece, Contrasts was performed by two outstanding Japanese students, Issei Kobayashi (violin), Yumeki Terunuma (clarinet) and by Prof. Kálmán Dráfi.
 

László Norbert Nemes, the director of the Kodály Institute, gave a masterclass to conductors at the Sibelius Akatemia in Helsinki on Bartók’s choral works (on this occasion, Professor Nemes was also video-interviewed). The progress made during the course was demonstrated by the Finnish students conducting the studied pieces in a separate concert (see programme brochure) on the fourth day of the masterclass. The choir was accompanied on piano by Anikó Novák, teacher of the Kodály Institute, who then also performed some pieces from Bartók’s Microcosmos.

In Croatia, the students of the Department of Piano at the Zagreb Academy of Music had the opportunity to attend Gábor Csalog’s piano masterclass, during which they did not only immerse in Bartók’s music but also in the pieces of his followers (Ligeti, Kurtág). More than twenty pianists from Zagreb signed up for the two-day course, and the event also enriched the cooperation between the two academies with a new element, as before, the two institutions mainly ran joint orchestra and opera projects.

The international Bartók Year-related event series will contintue in Tbilisi and The Hague in November and December presenting two quite complex programmes, then the course and concert series will make Bartók’s anniversary even more memorable in Belgrade, Brussels, Jerusalem, Berlin, Geneva, Warsaw, Vienna and London.

Click here to read more about the programme series and its sites.

This cultural event series is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the budget dedicated to the Bartók Year.