Tickets Are Now Available for the Concerts of the Fall 2014 Season of Liszt Academy

To view the entire September-December 2014 programme of the Liszt Academy – including the hosted concerts – please click here, while an overall list of tickets for the concerts organized by the Liszt Academy Concert Centre can be found at this link. With the upcoming publication of our third concert magazine, you may browse our comprehensive Fall 2014 program in a traditional format as well, but until then we wish to call your attention to some promisingly exiting performances from the next few months. (You may find the details by following the links.)

Vujicsics Ensemble (photo by Róbert László Bácsi)

The Vujicsics Ensemble, awarded the Kossuth Prize this year, opens the new season at the Liszt Academy with their 40^th anniversary concert on 30 September 2014. At the core of the Vujicsics 40 festive concert will be Béla Bartók's Serbian folk music collection, whereby the ensemble wishes to highlight the connections between classical and folk traditions. On 1 October two Junior Prima Prize-winning young virtuosos, Ernő Kállai, student of the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman, and János Balázs, a follower of György Cziffra, will make us relive what Liszt must have felt when listening to Paganini: in the second half of the concert they will perform Liszt's Grandes études de Paganini coupled with the original caprices, while in the first part we can enjoy the beautiful Romances of Clara Schumann, who was herself once deeply impressed with Niccolo Paganini. The next day, on 2 October, a genuine world star, Anoushka Shankar will step onto the stage of the Liszt Academy, who returns to Hungary after six years. While her first concert took place in the still unrestored building of Liszt Academy, now within the magnificently renewed walls of the music palace, a real spiritual experience awaits the audience as one of the greatest sitar players of our time introduces us into the realm of Classical Indian Ragas.

On 22  October the "On the Spot" series featuring departments of the Liszt Academy continues with the performance of the Keyboard and Accordic Department. The festive concert repertoire comprises exclusively the works of Liszt, which will be performed not only on piano but on harp and cimbalom as well. Another curiosity of the evening is the improvisations on Liszt themes by István Lantos, professor of the department. On 26 October two works by David Lang, one of the most prolific American composers of today, will be presented in the Grand Hall. First the Amadinda Percussion Group performs Lang's percussion piece The So-Called Laws of Nature (2002), followed by one of his most moving scores, The Little Match Girl Passion (2007) written for four solo voices, all playing percussion.

Emőke Baráth (photo by Zsófi Raffay)

"Interlaced Forever" is the title of the song recital that the young soprano Emőke Baráth gives at the Liszt Academy on 6 November. The former student of Júlia Pászthy, after scoring several national and international competition wins, this year got into the finals of the Queen Elisabeth Singing Competition in Brussels. Her concert program includes songs by Schumann and Schubert, as well as some gems of French song literature, with Gábor Csalog accompanying her on the piano. For jazz and film aficionados the concert of the Brussels Jazz Orchestra on November 19 offers a unique experience. The concert at the Liszt Academy forms part of the ensemble's tour designated to their latest project which presents incidental music composed by Loder Mertens, Florian Ross and Dieter Limbourg for two silent films from 1920 and one from 1919.

Ian Bostridge (photo by Ben Ealovega)

On  7 December 2014 the world renowned tenor, Ian Bostridge will debut in the Grand Hall and performs Schubert's song cycle Winterreise accompanied by the pianist-composer Thomas Adès. In the Advent season, on December 21 the audience can enjoy Händel's most frequently played work, the Messiah oratorio performed by the King's Consort, one of England's leading period instrument orchestras, which boasts 90 albums, over one million sold copies, a great number of tours as well as some significant discoveries in music history. Further early-music events of the Liszt Academy include the special performances given by Miklós Spányi and the Concerto Armonico Budapest for the 300^th birth anniversary of C. P. E. Bach: on October 10 the ensemble evokes the festive music of the court of Frederic the Great, and two days later Miklós Spányi and András Kemenes will have a keyboard duel.

Concerto Armonico Budapest

Of the youth programs offered by the Liszt Academy Concert Centre we recommend the Liszt Kidz Academy's matinee for 11-15-year-olds which takes place on 8 November in the Grand Hall. Through Benjamin Britten's popular The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra performed by the Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, and with the contribution of Máté Hámori playing the part of both conductor and storyteller the young audiences (and their families) can learn all there is to know about The Orchestra.

As for the opera program of the Fall 2014 season of Liszt Academy, we hold some special events for each month. A truly exciting evening should be the Finals of the 1^st Éva Marton Singing Competition to be held on September 20, whereas in October our audiences can have a behind-the-scenes experience of contemporary opera playing in two performances of the Armel Opera Competition. In November the Sir Georg Solti Chamber Hall will house three performances of Britten's chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia staged in coproduction with the Hungarian State Opera, while on December 18 and 22 the Liszt Academy reissues the Mozart-Varró-Almási-Tóth production of The Magic Flute, which premiered in December 2013.

The Magic Flute (photo by Liszt Academy / Gábor Fejér)

Most of the public exam and diploma concerts of the students of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music for the fall/winter season are to be announced later, however one date is already worthy of note: on September 22 the Grand Hall will host the DLA doctoral concert of István Lajkó, where the young piano virtuoso performs the works of Ligeti, Beethoven, Rautavaara and Scriabin accompanied by the university orchestra with conductor Zoltán Kocsis.

In addition to the tickets for individual performances, season tickets for the Fall 2014 series of the Liszt Academy Concert Centre are still on sale in a limited number. Every season ticket comprises three concerts, representing a nearly 20% discount on the ticket prices for individual concerts. Tickets and season tickets can be purchased via the Liszt Academy website, or at the ticket office in Liszt Ferenc Square according to the summer opening hours.