World Stars from a new perspective at Liszt Academy in 2015

An especially rich array of international guest stars will stage concerts at the Liszt Academy next year, such as Mitsuko Uchida, Magdalena Kožená, Vilde Frang, Denis Matsuev, Charles Dutoit, Mischa Maisky, Jordi Savall, Brad Mehldau, Vijay Iyer, along with the Zehetmair and the Brodsky Quartets; it will also host renowned Hungarian performers including Gábor Takács-Nagy, Miklós Perényi, András Keller, Barnabás Kelemen and his Quartet, Dénes Várjon, Kristóf Baráti and István Várdai. The 2015 concert season at the Liszt Academy has a focus on chamber music performances and unique collaborations featuring international and Hungarian artists. The new season tickets – and single tickets for concerts to be held in the first half of 2015 – are now on sale in the ticket office of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre located at Liszt Ferenc Square, and online booking is also available via this link.

Imre Szabó Stein, Andrea Vigh and András Csonka (Photo by Liszt Academy / Zoltán Tuba)

 

In introducing the 2015 concert programs at the press conference, Dr. Andrea Vigh, President of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, pointed out that the Liszt Academy Concert Centre thinks not in terms of season but fiscal year, and has announced its programs to the end of 2015 accordingly. She emphasized that the year 2015 is special in that it marks the 140^th anniversary of the Liszt Academy, as well as the 70^th anniversary of Béla Bartók's death. Director of Communications Imre Szabó Stein explained that the relatively narrow budget for the organization of concerts required a fresh and innovative program structuring, wherein the chamber music productions – already occupying a unique position in Liszt Academy’s repertoire – will play a prominent role in 2015.

In the programs offered for next year, “complete works” play an important part, said András Csonka, Cultural Director of the Liszt Academy, in presenting the new performance season. In the six concerts of the season ticket titled Complete Works Live, István Várdai and Péter Frankl perform Beethoven’s complete sonatas for cello and piano, Kristóf Baráti and Klára Würtz take to the stage with Beethoven’s complete sonatas for violin and piano, while Bach’s six cello suites will be presented by Miklós Perényi. The concert series Orchestra in the Centre will be opened by Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang together with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, to be followed by the Manchester Camerata, which has gained world fame under music director Gábor Takács-Nagy, and will now feature Andrea Vigh and István Várdai. Other significant international performers include Hansjörg Schellenberger conducting Concerto Budapest, with the participation of Izabella Simon and Dénes Várjon; Mischa Maisky accompanied by the New Hungarian Chamber Orchestra; and Charles Dutoit, who will visit Budapest as the leader of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The series is wound up in December with a concert by the Vienna-Berlin Chamber Orchestra featuring the solos of Russian pianist Denis Matsuev and Gábor Tarkövi, solo trumpeter of the Berlin Philharmonics. The Pure Baroque series at the Liszt Academy showcases such renowned artists and ensembles as Jordi Savall & Le Concert des Nations, Rachel Podger and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Purcell Choir and the Orfeo Orchestra, the Balthasar-Neumann Choir & Ensemble, Balázs Máté and the Aura Musicale, and finally harpsichord player Borbála Dobozy.
 

Mitsuko Uchida (Photo by Hyou Wielz)

A special season ticket has been devoted to Chamber Music for Grand Hall. In addition to the above mentioned Beethoven recital of the Várdai-Frankl duo, the series includes a performance by András Keller, Csaba Klenyán and Dénes Várjon presenting works by Bach and Bartók; the Keller Quartet, with its newest member, cellist László Fenyő, who will play Brahms’ String Sextet in G Major featuring Vilde Frang and cellist Nicolas Altstaedt; and the Argentinean pianist José Gallardo, who, after his huge success at the Kaposfest 2014, will now take to the stage with Barnabás Kelemen to present Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata among other pieces. Also in the series, a recital will be given by István Várdai, wherein he performs a solo, duo, trio and quartet, partnering with Sergei Krilov (violin), Lars Anders Tomter (viola) and Nelson Goerner (piano). In the concert series titled Four by Four, four quartets, the Brodsky, the Zehetmair, the Kelemen and the Belcea Quartets play with renowned guest soloists. The concerts to be given by the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra in 2015 constitute a separate season ticket called Masters of the Orchestra: the ensemble made up of selected students of the university will perform under the baton of such outstanding conductors as György Vashegyi, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Pinchas Steinberg and Zoltán Kocsis, with invited soloists including among others Barnabás Kelemen presenting Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
 

Photo: Liszt Academy / Zoltán Tuba

The Song Recitals at the Liszt Academy season ticket offers some true curiosities in 2015. The series opens with Katalin Halmai and Gábor Alszászy, professors of the Liszt Academy of Music, to be continued on 24 May with the guest performance of two world stars: the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená is one of the most sought-after opera and oratorio singers of our times, who will be accompanied on the piano by the Japanese-born, Grammy Award winning classical pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Furthermore, during the autumn of 2015, the audience has the opportunity to enjoy recitals by the Ukrainian Tetiana Zhuravel, Audience Award winner of the 1^st International Éva Marton Singing Competition, and by the Hungarian Szilvia Vörös. The Liszt Kidz Academy for 10-15- year-olds continues next year too, while in the series Talent Oblige upcoming ensembles and music students at the beginning of their solo careers make their mark on the stage of the Liszt Academy, with performers such as Mihály Demeniv, Gergely Devich, the Musiciens Libres and the Nyári Quartet.

The new season tickets for the Liszt Academy Concert Centre represent a significant, 20% discount on the ticket prices for individual concerts and can be purchased no later than the date of the first performance in the given series. A further Christmas discount of 20% is offered on the season tickets purchased in 2014. From 1 January 2015, “á la carte” season tickets are also available, wherein you can build your own season package from the concerts organized by the Liszt Academy Concert Centre: each such season ticket comprises 3 to 5 concerts and can be purchased at a 10-20% discount. As a novelty, gift certificates are on sale from 25 November 2014 and can be redeemed in full for all of the events offered by the Liszt Academy for next year.

In addition to the 2015 season tickets of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre, an overall program listing for the first half of 2015 can be viewed on the Liszt Academy website and, from January 2015, in the new issue of the Liszt Academy Concert Magazine. As Imre Szabó Stein said at the press conference, the upcoming issue contains, besides the usual concert offers, articles exploring the question of “stardom in classical music”, including an exclusive essay by the renowned British music critic Norman Lebrecht.