Historic concert: Hungarian pianist may play for King Charles III in Westminster Abbey
A 34-year-old Hungarian pianist will write history this Sunday. Zsombor Tóth-Vajna may play for King Charles III as the first ever Hungarian in the more than 700-year-long history of the abbey. And he was the one who invited Charles III to the event.
According to atv.hu, Zsombor Tóth-Vajna is a PhD student at the Royal College of Music, the world’s nr 1 institute of higher education in music. His research focuses on the organ music of the 17th century. That is why the Westminster Abbey contacted him a year ago.
“It is an exceptional honour and responsibility to play at this place. Westminster Abbey is a special place for me because that is the centre of Anglican culture. Several monarchs have been buried there, and it is the coronation church of the United Kingdom”, the Hungarian pianist said.
He said he would never forget the day when he received the abbey’s invitation email. “I was very happy when I got it. I immediately phoned my sibling and my parents. They said they would come to the concert”, Mr Tóth-Vajna said.
There is a special guest on Zsombor’s list: the British monarch, Charles III. His friends living in London told him it was a custom to invite Charles III to all the concerts performed in the abbey. Thus, he wrote an invitation with the help of his brother and printed it on a pretty paper.
The Hungarian pianist in the Vatican:
Charles III has at least one Hungarian friend
Zsombor Tóth-Vajna has been regarded as a prodigy ever since his childhood. He graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Afterwards, he continued his studies in Amsterdam. However, in Budapest, he graduated as a doctor at Semmelweis University, where he studied concurrently. He is a frequent guest of Hungarian and international concerts. Apart from several European countries, he already performed in the United States.
The Westminster Abbey concert will be held on 18 February at 5 PM local time. Entry it is free.
The abbey said in a Facebook post that “we’ll be welcoming organist Zsombor Tóth-Vajna to the Abbey at 5 PM on Sunday when he’ll be giving a recital of music by Blow, Purcell and Handel. Entry is free, and everyone is welcome”, they concluded. HERE, you may read the full program.
If Charles III reads the invitation and sees that a Hungarian pianist is performing, he may go. The British monarch was a regular guest in Transylvania and bought several properties there. One of them, where he regularly spends some days each summer, is in a village populated only by Hungarians. HERE is our article about it.
Furthermore, one of his best friends is a Hungarian man. Count Tibor Kálnoky lives in Miklósvár in Transylvania in a renovated castle and regularly meets the British monarch in Zalánpatak. We wrote about Count Kálnoky in THIS article.