New Year’s Day Concert Presented by Liszt Academy

Celebrating a new beginning with music really ought not to require any sort of institutionalized tradition. Despite this, such traditions do exist, and what is more, they are becoming increasingly popular. In Hungary, the past few decades have witnessed the launch of several such concert series. Now it is the turn of the Liszt Academy to join this seasonal tradition with its own event – except that our production follows an unusual and dynamic concept: our university students themselves, under the direction of Balázs Fülei, Péter Árendás and Károly Binder, are involved in the New Year’s Day Concert, delivering a programme combining folk music, classical and jazz productions designed to highlight the kinship between different musical attitudes and performance modes. The first half of the concert starts with an authentically performed folk song, which then ‘morphs’ into a Kodály transcription and jazz arrangement, which in turn leads to the music of Mozart performed across several genres. The core motif of the second half is Bach’s Air, performed in classical (string) and jazz versions; this is followed by Marosszék folk music transitions and Kodály’s Marosszék Dances on piano. In the third section, the tunes shift from Bartók to Brahms, with motifs from Romanian Folk Dances in classical, folk and jazz forms leading eventually to the fourth movement of the Piano Concerto in G minor by Brahms, bringing the concert to a blissful close.

Guests are greeted on New Year’s Day with a glass of sparkling wine.