art

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.

Read also:

September 7, 2023

New American action film shot in Hungary huge at cinemas – trailer

The Gran Turismo film, based on the car video game, has only been out for a few weeks. Nonetheless, it’s already enjoying overwhelming popularity. The production, starring Archie Madekwe, David Harbour and Orlando Bloom, was shot mostly in Hungary.

The film focuses on Jann, a racing enthusiast. He has everything he needs to be a champion: not the way you would first think, though. He is to be a champion at home, in the video game Gran Turismo (which is the title of the film). His gaming skills help him achieve the impossible and become a true professional racer, turizmus.com writes. The film features a number of race tracks, but keen viewers will be able to spot the Hungarian setting, as a large part of the production was shot in Hungary.

Almost all of the race scenes were filmed at the Hungaroring, in Mogyoród.

Unfortunately, however, the Hungaroring does not “star” as itself in the film, so it is not suitable for a country image, turizmus.com adds. The filmmakers have confirmed that the Hungarian circuit will be presented to the audience as the French Circuit de la Sarthe.

Most of the other scenes were shot in Budapest, but the Hungarian capital appears as Tokyo during the events.

In the Gran Turismo, you can also see the Buda Castle, the Chain Bridge, St. Stephen’s Basilica and the Heroes’ Square. Filming took place in November and December 2022. Other filming locations included Dubai and Spielberg in Austria, according to The Cinamaholic.

The official trailers:

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September 2, 2023

Venice Exhibition to showcase beauty and history of Hungarian glass art

architectural model spatial spiral glass art museum

A group exhibition entitled Glass Art NOW! will be presented at the Ateneo Veneto in Venice, Italy, showcasing almost a hundred exhibits of Hungarian glass art between 2 and 15 September, as part of the 7th Venice Glass Week international glass art festival.

Glass Art NOW! will review the highlights of the history of glass art in Hungary. In addition to works from the history of glass, some forty contemporary Hungarian glass artists have been given the opportunity to exhibit, alongside well-known glass artists and young talents.

Glass Art NOW! will present the history of glass in the Carpathian Basin from Roman excavations to the present day, in connection with the Bohus-Lugossy Foundation‘s research project “A Thousand Years of Hungarian Glass.” The curators have grouped the objects of glass history into four thematic units, under the names of the cities of Rome, Venice, Veszprém (western Hungary), and Salgótarján (northern Hungary).

erzsébet n hamza — Erzsébet N. Hamza (1944-2022) – Vases, 1980. Source: Glass Art NOW!

Visitors can listen to the short stories in Italian and English by scanning QR codes placed on the tables of the four thematic display cases, while those who wish to read the full stories in depth can do so on the exhibition website, according to the press release.

The glass history objects were selected from Hungarian museums and private collectors by the curator of the exhibition, András B. Szilágyi, art historian and assistant professor at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, and Szonja Dohnál, co-curator and art historian and deputy director of the House of Arts in Veszprém.

The exhibition of contemporary glass art was created with the participation of about forty artists, ten of whom created completely new works for the first Hungarian glass art exhibition in Venice. The exhibition was created with the support of the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture program, as the Veszprém region stands as one of the key centers of glass art in Hungary.

György Buczkó composition in black i. glass sculpture — György Buczkó (1950-): Composition in black I. glass sculpture

The city hosts one of the country’s largest collections of contemporary and historical glass art at the Laczkó Dezső Museum. The museum’s glass collection is represented with significant works at the Glass Art NOW! exhibition.

In conjunction with the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale (18th International Architecture Exhibition), the exhibition will also present a 1:100 scale architectural model of the European Museum of Contemporary Glass Art, the Space Spiral.

Palazzo Loredan, home to The Venice Glass Week, will showcase the work of twenty international glass artists, including five renowned Hungarian glass artists, who are represented in the exhibition in collaboration with the Bohus-Lugossy Foundation.

September 1, 2023

James Blunt to perform in Budapest!

In 2024, James Blunt will bring his new album tour to the Hungarian capital, Budapest. His new album Who We Used To Be will be released at the end of October.

James Blunt’s Who We Used To Be tour in 2024

James Blunt will perform at the MVM Dome in Budapest on 5 March 2024 as part of his spring European tour, hvg.hu reports. The tour will showcase the new album Who We Used To Be, out on 27 October. The five-time Grammy-nominated singer will also perform in the United Kingdom as part of his spring European tour, following Hungary. In the UK, he will play two concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

This is not the first time that the singer of the hit song You’re Beautiful has visited Hungary.

Not the first time that he performs in Budapest

“Hungarian audiences have already seen the world star, known for his strong stage presence, romantic singing style, catchy melodies and danceable songs,” the organiser writes.

The statement quotes Blunt:

“Words cannot express how excited I am to be back on tour in 2024. It’s been incredible fun writing and recording my new album. I’m sure some of the new songs will move everyone. I can’t wait to crowdsurf – in Budapest too.”

Blunt was last due to come to Hungary in 2020, but his concert was cancelled due to Covid, 24.hu writes. However, he was positive about the Hungarian capital when he played at Papp László Budapest Sports Arena in 2018:

“I don’t know how many times I’ve been here, but I feel at home now. This time I went shopping in a supermarket because I ran out of things during the tour,” he said at the time. Blunt also revealed that in addition to performing, he had also travelled through Hungary several times as a professional soldier.

Beside You and Who We Used To Be

The album’s first single is the recently released Beside You. The video, directed by Craig Bingham, recalls memories of James’ past. In the video, James encounters past selves of himself, and as he moves on, he takes on the roles of his past life.

Who We Used To Be is James Blunt’s first studio album since the critically and publicly acclaimed Once Upon A Mind in 2019. A compilation of the singer’s biggest hits, 2021’s The Stars Beneath My Feet has gone gold.

You can buy tickets HERE.

August 24, 2023

Tragedy: Influential Hungarian theatre to close its doors for good

“We regret to announce that our theatre activities at the Átrium will end at the end of the current season, in the summer of 2024,” the Átrium theatre’s Facebook page says. The institution has been struggling with funding problems and has been making up for the lack of resources with community funding. Unfortunately, now it has decided to close permanently.

Átrium forced to close at the end of the season

“Last summer’s community stand for the Átrium gave the whole theatre team an incredible boost and strength, and we have been living off this energy ever since, but we have to admit that there is no hope of continuing our work in a decent and predictable environment. Our supporters have been given an accurate account of how their donations have been used, they have seen how important their contribution has been to our current survival – but you can’t just survive every year,” Átrium wrote in its post.

“We maintain an institution where one person works instead of three, where you can’t give less than 120 percent, where everything hangs by a thread. We want to finish before it starts to affect our artistic work, the mental and physical health of our colleagues. The current situation is unsustainable both humanly and professionally,” the post reads.

“We are tired, because this tightrope walk, which has been going on for five years now, takes away the curious and creative energy that makes theatre worthwhile and enjoyable,”

Átrium adds.

“We have one season left to say goodbye together to the theatre we are making. We would like to be free to rejoice together that there is one more season to go, and we welcome everyone!” they conclude.

Supporters and fans are heartbroken

Understandably, theatre-goers and supporters are devastated by the sad news. “I am very very sad, just digesting in silence and with tears in my eyes! My most impactful theatre experiences were at Átrium, shared with my daughter and our friends! Something is broken, torn! The dark feudalism remains…,” one of them wrote.

“I am very very sorry… We have you to thank for unforgettable performances and wonderful theatre evenings! We will be with you every night as long as we can, and in our hearts forever! May the curse of my God be upon all those who did this!” another supporter wrote.

“Why does history repeat itself??? I feel unspeakably hopeless and sad. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything! And we will keep going, we will keep going as long as we can.”

August 21, 2023

Indian artist of Hungarian descent commemorated in Delhi – PHOTOS

On 10 August, the Liszt Institute – Hungarian Cultural Centre Delhi in collaboration with the University of Delhi presented its “Colour is my Domain” event to commemorate the 110th birth anniversary of the Hungary-born contemporary painter/artist, Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941).

”Amrita Sher-Gil’s Art – in the Reflection of Poems, Music and the Letters of the Artist” is a compilation by Hungarian poet and author, Gábor Lanczkor. He curated the event based on his poems about Amrita Sher-Gil and letters by the late artist.

The function was presided over by Prof. Amitava Chakraborty, while Dr. Margit Köves, Visiting Assistant Professor of Hungarian Language, University of Delhi served as the event moderator.

Several selected poems were recited by the Hungarian poet, Gábor Lanczkor, followed by extracts from Amrita Sher-Gil’s letters presented by Ms. Aruna Chaudhary, a Hungarian language student at the University of Delhi.
The audience also had the chance to enjoy an enchanting repertoire of musical intermezzos performed by Krisztina Lanczkor-Kocsis on European flute – pieces by great Hungarian and French contemporaries of Amrita.

Gábor Lanczkor is an award-winning Hungarian author with sixteen published books: novels, poetry volumes, essays and children’s books. He is the editor-in-chief of the Hungarian Online World Literature magazine. His wife, Krisztina Lanczkor-Kocsis, is an outstanding international flutist.

The event was exceptionally well-received by the students, professors and the selected audience.

August 14, 2023

Summerfest international folklore festival to start on Saturday

Summerfest, an international folklore festival held in Százhalombatta, south of Budapest, will get under way on Saturday, organisers told MTI.

The highlights of the week-long progamme’s 200 events will include shows by seven folk groups as well as seven theatrical performances from countries including Brazil, North Macedonia, Croatia, India, Poland, Serbia, and Senegal.

Over the course of the festival’s 30 years, nearly 50,000 participants from 112 countries have participated in events held in Százhalombatta, Tököl, Ráckeve, Szigetszentmiklós, and Dunavarsány.

Hungarian performers this year include the Turay Ida Theatre, the Fitos Dezső Company, the 100-strong Gypsy Band, the Duna Ensemble, the Forrás Folk Dance Company, András Berecz, as well as the FlamenCorazonArte Dance Theatre.

The festival will end in a spectacular gala on 20 August, Hungary’s national holiday.

August 7, 2023

Czechia to be guest of honour at 20 August art festival in Hungary

Czechia will be the guest of honour country at this year’s traditional Festival of Folk Arts organised in the Buda Castle between 18-20 August, the organisers said on Monday.

Craftsmen from Czechia will set up model workshops to present traditions in weaving, blue printing, embroidery, wool processing and wood carving to visitors, the organisers of the Festival of Folk Arts said in a statement.

At workshops, masters from the Republic of Korea will present calligraphy, the traditional Korean patchwork jogakbo and traditional decorative colouring on wooden buildings dancheong.

The festival will also celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hungary’s accession to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention. It will feature communities representing crafts included in the UNESCO National and Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage such as the Matyó embroidery, blue printing, lacemaking, the Szeged mule slides and the Busó-s of Mohács, among others.

August 7, 2023

Jewish Cultural Festival offers music and literature this September in Hungary

The 25th Jewish Cultural Festival will offer music and literary events throughout Budapest between September 3 and 12, the organisers said on Wednesday.

Events will be held at the Great Synagogue in Dohány Street, Europe’s largest, and at the Frankel Leó, Hegedűs Gyula and Rumbach street synagogues, as well as in the Bálint House, House of Music Hungary and Papp László Budapest Sports Arena, they said in a statement.

The festival will be opened by the Budapest Klezmer Band giving a concert and concluded with a performance by the Sabbathsong Klezmer Band.

International performers will include the Voices of Yemen, Omri Mor Trio, Alex Jacobowitz, Leonid Gutkin, and guests of the Binah Orchestra.

For further programme details, please visit zsidokulturalisfesztival.hu. Find the Facebook page of the festival HERE.

August 2, 2023

Rick Astley to perform at Hungarian festival tomorrow!

The 11th Paloznak Jazz Picnic festival to be held near Lake Balaton on Aug 3-5 will feature international performers, such as 1980s star Rick Astley and jazz-funk group Level 42 from England, along with renowned Hungarian performers.

The headliners on August 3, the opening day of the festival, will include funk-rock singer and bass player Nik West, followed by Astley.

On the second day, Dirty Loops, a Swedish group working out of New York, will give a concert to be followed by electronic music outfit Thievery Corporation from Washington, DC.

The headliners on the third night will include British acid jazz group Incognito, followed by Level 42 which will play in Hungary for the first time in Paloznak.

The over forty performers to feature at the festival will also include Hungarian jazz stars, such as Barabás Lőrinc Quarter, Sena Dagadu, Random Trip and Vanavan.

The event’s host, the Homola Winery, will provide a special selection of local wines.

The Together for Autistic People Foundation, Semmelweis University’s Pediatric Center, the Superar Foundation offering free art training to disadvantaged children, and the Jane Goodall Institute will also be represented at the festival.

You can still buy tickets to the festival HERE.

August 2, 2023

F1: Norris smashes Verstappen’s unique artwork trophy, generous offer received

Max Verstappen was presented with a special handmade Herendi trophy after his Hungarian Grand Prix victory on Sunday, but as we reported, Lando Norris smashed the unique relic. The CEO of Herendi Porcelánmanufaktúra Ltd, Attila Simon, announced on M4 Sport that the trophy would be replaced.

This time, the Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix podium winners were again presented with beautiful Herendi porcelains after the race. However, once the champagne was served, they completely forgot about the elaborate pieces placed on the podium steps. Second place Lando Norris, as usual, shook the champagne by knocking it against the podium and the winning trophy fell off its place and shattered into pieces.

The McLaren team apologised for their driver’s behaviour.

The first prize Herendi porcelain was made by 30 people over six months and has an estimated value of €40,000. As Red Bull displays all their trophies in their Milton Keynes showcase, they would have been forced to order a similar one, but a generous announcement was made by the porcelain manufacturer.

“It is with great regret that we learned yesterday that the beautiful Herendi trophy, a handmade work of art, was damaged. It is the result of nearly six months of work, more than thirty people have been working on it, and we were very sorry to see that this was the fate of our artwork. But we believe, and Herendi Porcelain Manufactory is a company that plays a key role in building the country’s image, that we will replace the trophy for the first-place winner, and while the teams decide who was at fault and who was not, we will take on the joyful and heavy burden of doing so,”

said Attila Simon, CEO.

July 24, 2023

PHOTOS: Guns N’ Roses members arrive in Budapest

On 19 July, the legendary American rock band Guns N’ Roses will perform at the Puskás Arena in Budapest. The band, founded in 1985, will return to Hungary after 17 years. And it seems that the band members have already arrived in the Hungarian capital.

The luckier ones could already run into Axl Rose and Duff Mckagan around the Vörösmarty Square area on Monday evening, Lángoló reports.

According to the Instagram page of the Hungarian Guns N’ Roses fan group, the band’s plane landed at Budapest Airport on Monday evening. Soon after, the members appeared in the city centre:

A bejegyzés megtekintése az Instagramon

Guns N Roses (eterno) (@gunsnroseseterno) által megosztott bejegyzés

A bejegyzés megtekintése az Instagramon

Guns n Roses Hungary 85′-93′ (@gnrhungary) által megosztott bejegyzés

As we reported yesterday, Johnny Depp and his band’s concert in Budapest was cancelled at the last minute. Read the details HERE.

July 19, 2023

Breaking: Johnny Depp Budapest concert cancelled

Johnny Depp Alice Cooper concert Budapest

Johnny Depp’s band, touring with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry, has cancelled its Budapest concert at the last minute.

The Hollywood Vampires were scheduled to perform at the Papp László Budapest Sport Arena on Tuesday night. However, shortly before the show started, the stage was taken down, Index reports.

The news that the concert had been cancelled was announced over the loudspeaker. The Index journalist waiting for the concert said that the thousands of people in the crowd were disappointed, many not wanting to believe that this was happening.

It understood that Depp fell ill and had to cancel at the last minute.

The Hollywood Vampires’ publicist also announced the news on Facebook:

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Vampires will be canceling tonight’s show in Budapest. All tickets (general and VIP, including meet & greet) will be refunded in full. We love and appreciate all of the fans who traveled from near and far to see us rise, and we’re truly sorry.

July 18, 2023

Budapest Csontváry exhibition has drawn over 170,000 visitors so far

A large-scale exhibition of works by renowned Hungarian painter Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka (1853-1919) has attracted over 170,000 visitors since it opened in Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts in April, the museum said on Monday.

The exhibition presenting 45 paintings and spanning the oeuvre of “the most original Hungarian painter” will run until 16 July.

The exhibition features titles including the iconic Ruins of the Ancient Greek Theatre at Taormina, the thirty-square-metre Baalbek, the Pilgrimage to the Cedars in Lebanon and the Lonely Cedar, among others.

A section presents his early portraits, self-portraits, bird paintings and the landscapes inspired by his study visit to Italy.

The exhibition in Budapest will be open for the public on Monday and for extended hours, from 9 AM until 9 PM, on the weekend, the museum said.

The show will then travel on to Pécs.

July 11, 2023

PHOTOS: Hungary’s first digital exhibition place opens in Budapest downtown

On 7 July, Hungary’s first immersive, digital art exhibition space, Cinema Mystica, opened in Budapest’s Párisi Udvar.

Turizmus.com took part in the press visit on 6 July. “This exhibition is a fusion of digital art and sacrality”, said Dávid Vigh, artistic director of Cinema Mystica and curator of the exhibition.

The following questions will be answered by the spectacle: Can digital art be visionary? Can it convey sacred content? Can technology become subservient to a higher purpose? How can artificial intelligence be applied to the production of transformative content?

The exhibition is immersive because it takes the visitor on a sensory journey through the world of light, sound and graphics. In the context of the exhibition, immersion also refers to the spaces, objects and series of objects that can be entered or circumnavigated, where the visual and aural experience is 360°, three-dimensional.

There are 20 interactive digital art installations in 10 rooms in the exhibition space, turizmus.com writes. Cinema Mystica’s artists include both local and foreign creators. Most of them are members of the Global Illumination community.

At the press visit, it was stated that Cinema Mystica will be more than just an exciting and unique attraction in the city centre. In the long term, they want it to be a digital workspace for artists, a platform, a hub where they can talk about art, digitalisation, new technologies.

Tickets

The full price adult ticket, purchased online or on site, is HUF 5,800 (EUR 15.07), HUF 4,400 (EUR 11.43) for students and pensioners, HUF 3,500 (EUR 9.09) for children between 3-12 years. Family tickets (two adults, two children under 12) are available for HUF 14,800 (EUR 38.45), and for a group of ten people the ticket costs HUF 44,000 (EUR 114.32).

You can find more information about the tickets HERE.

July 9, 2023

Hungarian makeup artist to decide which film will win Oscar 2024!

“Congratulations to makeup artist, Erzsébet Forgács for join the American Film Academy!”, the Hungarian Embassy in Washington DC said in a Facebook post praising Erzsébet Forgács.

We wrote in June that Erzsébet Forgács has been elected to the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). As a result, Forgács will also determine which film will win an Oscar in 2024. This year, the Academy has recruited 398 film professionals to its illustrious team. Forgács will strengthen the section for make-up artists and hairstylists.

Erzsébet Forgács’s filmography includes films such as Az ajtó (The Door), Saul fia (Son of Saul), Napszállta (Sunset) and Csodálatos Júlia (Being Julia). According to the list on the Academy’s website, this year’s list of invitees includes several recent Oscar winners. Among them are the writer-director duo of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheiner, the film’s producer Jonathan Wang and one of the actors, Ke Huy Quan, as well as the director of All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger, and his cinematographer James Friend.

New members of the Academy’s music section include big names such as Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and David Byrne. If everyone accepts the invitation, the number of members of the Academy will rise to 10,817, of whom 9,375 will be eligible to vote in next year’s Oscars.

Erzsébet Forgács at work:

July 8, 2023

Sziget Festival awaits with colourful world music programme

From 10 to 15 August, a wide range of genres and styles will be on offer, from Mexican cumbia punk to Celtic and gypsy music to Greek ethno ska-rock.

There will be a circus performance from India, but giant puppets will also appear, the organisers told MTI on Friday. The Global Village stage will host the best of world music from the Balkans to South America, Mali to Korea and India to the Middle East.

There will also be music workshops during the day before the concerts. You can dance to calypso music at a concert by Canadian-based Trinidadian band Kobo Town, and Mexican cumbia punk music by Band Son Rompe Pera. Kommuna Lux from Odessa, the Ukrainian Balaklava Blues from Canada, the up-and-coming progressive folk band Gangar from Norway, the ethno-punk band Varkocs from Slovakia, the gypsy singer Marcela from Paris, the multicultural German band Lakvar, the French-Greek Deli Teli will also be playing.

The British Langan Band presents a new pan-European album inspired by Celtic and gypsy styles. Ti’Kaniki from the island of Réunion will be on hand, but there will also be a chance to rave to Estonian duo Puuluup or pogo to Greek ethno ska-rock artist Koza Mostra.

Among the local acts, folk-ska-punk hits from Bohemian Betyars, reggae band Manaky and ethno-dark-rock group Mordái will also take to the stage at Global Village.

In addition to the musical programme, the Indian Circus Raj will perform with acrobats, musicians, tightrope walkers and a fakir. The Congo Massa giant puppets of the French company Archibald Caramantran will also invite you to dance, accompanied by a giraffe, a zebra and two beautiful birds.

July 7, 2023

French Institute Budapest to host Eiffel workshop and street party in July

The French Institute in Budapest will organise an Eiffel architecture workshop, free concerts, a gastronomy show and a street party on 15 July, to celebrate the national holiday of France.

The architecture workshop for children and adults will put in focus the Eiffel Tower, to mark the 100th birth anniversary of Gustave Eiffel, the institute told MTI in a statement.

The gastronomy show will offer visitors French cheese specialties, bakery products, sweets and wine and raclette, among others.

In the evening, pianist chien noir will give a pop concert, to be followed by the French-Hungarian Ephemer duo performing jazz and world music.

In a closing programme, a street party will be held with the public invited to join.

July 7, 2023