Bach festival to hold 150 free concerts in 7 countries

The Bach for Everyone festival will hold 150 free concerts in 60 localities throughout the Carpathian Basin and beyond between March 16 and 31, organisers said on Tuesday.

The concerts will be held in various venues from children’s hospitals to the Royal Palace in Gödöllő, in Hungary, while venues outside Hungary include those in Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Slovakia, festival director Zalán László Kovács told a press conference held in Budapest’s Erkel Theatre. One-third of the concerts will be held in neighbouring countries, he said.

The festival will be held for the eighth time this year, around the anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s birth on March 21, he said.

“The festival was held mostly online in the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, but still drew 200,000 people in 2021 alone,” he said.

Performers include the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Danubia Orchestra, the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, the National Choir, the orchestra and choir of the Budapest Opera, as well as conductor Adam Medveczky, soprano Katalin Pitti and cellist Ditta Rohmann, among others, he said.

Events will run until the end of the year, Kovács said.

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