“Music is his battery” – Violinist Péter Kováts received the Weiner Memorial Prize this year
Postponed from spring due to the epidemic, the Leó Weiner Memorial Prize, awarded by the Liszt Academy Board of Trustees, was now handed over at a closed event.
The award is given to outstanding musicians and music educators who have worked in the spirit of Leó Weiner, for their many decades of dedicated and successful artistic work and teaching. President Andrea Vigh greeted the audience and handed over the floor to Liszt Prize-winning pianist Balázs Fülei, head of the Chamber Music Department, who gave the laudation.
Photo: Liszt Academy/László Mudra
“When asked where he draws energy for his extraordinarily active and diverse musical presence, Péter Kováts once answered: 'Music charges me up.' That’s when I understood: music is his battery. Whenever he plays music or listens to music, this battery is charged, and his energy levels multiply,” recalled Balázs Fülei, adding that the recent Weiner Prize winner has been one of the iconic figures of Hungarian music for 37 years, who has received a Golden Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary and a Bartók-Pásztory Prize, and has taught at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. He noted that at the Academy of Music, among others, Semyon Snykovsky (David Oistrakh’s assistant) was Péter Kováts’s master. He studied chamber music with György Kurtág and Sándor Devich, and orchestra music with Albert Simon. His graduation concert programme was Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 in 1983, and a few years later he pursued postgraduate studies with Robert Davidovic in the United States as a scholarship fellow. He has participated in several master classes, held by Sándor Végh, István Ruha, Vladimir Spivakov and Volodar Bronin, among others. He has performed in most European countries, as well as in America and Africa. He has played as a soloist in major concert halls around the world, such as the Verdi Hall in Milan, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, L’Auditori in Barcelona, and his recordings have been broadcast by France 3 and several American radio and TV stations.
Péter Kováts was the soloist and chamber partner of Tamás Vásáry, Miklós Perényi, Ilona Tokody, István Ruha, Péter Frankl, Balázs Fülei, Imre Rohmann, Ingrid Kertesi, Vadim Repin, Yuri Bashmet and Mischa Maisky, and othes.
He has also worked as the artistic director and conductor of the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra with Gidon Kremer, Kristóf Baráti, Zoltán Kocsis, Andrea Rost, Glenn Dicterow, Ray Chen, Jenő Jandó, Barnabás Kelemen, Vilmos Szabadi, János Bálint, György Győriványi Ráth, Gergely Kesselyák and Gergelly Madaras.
As the concertmaster of Concerto Budapest, he has worked with several Hungarian and international conductors, including András Keller, Ádám Medveczky, András Ligeti, Domonkos Héja, and Gennady Rozhdestvensky.
He has made a recording of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and Mendelssohn's earlier concerts, among other works.
Balázs Fülei also mentioned that Péter Kováts has edited, written the screenplay of and compiled the musical material for a TV programme about the life and work of Lipót Auer. After all, the recent prize-winning violinist is the founder of the Aurel school in Hungary. Thanks to him, the Auer Festival is held since 2012 in Veszprém, where excellent Hungarian performers as well as renowned international artists have performed. “Dear Péter, I wish that this prize named after Leó Weiner, the founder of the Chamber Music Department of the Academy of Music, which has been awarded to the greatest Hungarian musicians, help charge your inexhaustible music battery,” Balázs Fülei greeted the recipient.
Photo: Liszt Academy/László Mudra
The Leó Weiner Memorial Prize was founded in 2004 by the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, after the institution inherited the composer's legacy and property by the will of Leó Weiner's heir, Mrs. Schwartz. For the worthy use of the money, the university has set up a board of trustees, chaired by the sitting president.
Leó Weiner, a prominent composer and educator of the first half of the 20th century, trained generations of instrumentalists at the Chamber Music Department of the Liszt Academy for half a century, almost every world-famous Hungarian virtuoso having been his disciple. In addition to living traditions, his pedagogical work was also recorded in his writings.
In recent years, renowned artists such as pianist Márta Gulyás, violinist János Rolla and the members of the Bartók String Quartet received the Leó Weiner Memorial Prize.