Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival to be held in Budapest in October

The Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival held between 11 and 22 October in Budapest will feature events in contemporary music and artists of national and international renown, the organisers told a press conference on Wednesday.

At the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival, organised for the 3rd time, Liszt’s opera Sardanapalo, will have its Hungarian premiere, the director of the Palace of Arts (Mupa) said. The piece, which has survived in fragments and was reconstructed by David Trippett, can now be heard in Budapest alongside Liszt’s Dante Symphony, performed by the Staatskapelle Weimar, said Csaba Káel.

The festival will feature renowned Hungarian pianist Gergely Bogányi performing pieces by Liszt at a joint concert with the Angelica Girls’ Choir, he said.

Káel said the event will present how Liszt has inspired our times and its generations including György Kurtág and György Ligeti.

In a highlight, the festival will premiere György Kurtág’s only opera, Fin de la partie (Endgame), which is based on Samuel Beckett’s epochal drama, in a staged concert.

In another highlight, the festival will also offer a large-scale piano marathon celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of composer György Ligeti, a close friend of Kurtág over six decades, Káel said.

International star guests include the legendary Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, founded nearly four decades ago. The band will play new compositions written for this year’s Liszt Fest tour at a concert with Japanese organist Akiko Tsuruga and Hungarian pop and soul singer Gigi Radics as special guests, said Janina Szomolányi, the festival’s operative director.

Other guest stars include Polish pianist-composer Hania Rani, who likes to transcend genres and experiment with electronics and vocals, and the 50-year-old Kronos Quartet which will be on stage in a joint act with award-winning Iranian singer-composer Mahsa Vahdat.

Iconic performers of Gypsy dance and music, the Boban Markovic Orkestar, Parno Graszt, Mónika Lakatos and the Roma Fest Gypsy Dance Theatre, will evoke the mood of a Roma wedding feast with a joint staged concert, she said.

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