Hommage à Zoltán Kocsis Presented by Liszt Academy

“All music puts down deep roots,” percussionist and conductor Zoltán Rácz, founder of Amadinda Percussion Group and UMZE Chamber Ensemble, once said when celebrating the 40th anniversary of his artistic career. He was speaking in connection with the organic links between the living practice of contemporary music and knowledge of cultural history repertoire, as well as inspiration deriving from traditional cultural forms. The programme of this concert dedicated to the memory of Zoltán Kocsis similarly clearly reflects this inextricably close relationship arising from the most fundamental essence of music: in the programme established from an interweaving of classical and contemporary compositions, space has been given not only to one work each by Johann Sebastian Bach and Mozart but a composition by Barnabás Dukay who thinks in terms of clear poetic images, a piece by Frederic Rzewski that correlates music and speech rhythm, and Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion – in fact, the very same work that in effect launched the performance career of Zoltán Rácz four decades ago. Whereas at that time Zoltán Kocsis and Dezső Ránki played the piano parts, now the world-famous concert pianist Kirill Gerstein, celebrated for his unmistakeably intelligent virtuosity, joins the exceptionally talented Zoltán Fejérvári.