Tag Archives: Balazs Horvath

Happy Creative New Year/ Boldog Alkotó Új Év(et)

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December has been an especially active month for me as a composer. I have finished my newest opera entitled ‘Transporters’ (‘Fuharosok’ in Hungarian). It is a mono-concert-opera for 1 singer (or if decided by a stage director, it can also be done by 3 singers) and 15 players based on the novel of the same title by Péter Esterházy (1950-2016). ‘Transporters’ will be first performed in its natural concert-form with the UMZE Ensemble, Anna Molnár singing the vocal part, on March 13, 2020 at the Budapest Music Center, conducted by me.
Check out the bi-lingual website of Ensemble UMZE about details on my piece and the concert mentioned above, and also about the next two performances of Ensemble UMZE, conducted by Balázs Horváth.

https://umze.hu

Before hitting the concert-scene running – for details click HOME and look ——> to the right 😉 – I will participate in a panel organized by the Musica Femina International Symposium as part of Transparent Sound Festival (January 8)

https://atlatszohang.hu

and also do the first TV interview of 2020 on the same day. More news in 2020, until then:
Happy New Year, and Lots of Beautiful and Exciting Music to You All!

December 26-án, majdnem napra pontosan 6 hónappal az első hang leírása után, befejeztem ‘Fuharosok’ című mono-koncert-operámat Esterházy Péter azonos című regénye alapján. 2020 március 13-án lesz a bemutató az UMZE hangversenyén Molnár Anna előadásában. Az alábbi linken nem csak erről a koncertről, hanem az UMZE két további, januári hangversenyéről is található részletes információ magyarul és angolul.

https://umze.hu

Mielőtt ismét beindul a koncertszezon sűrűje, január 8-án még vendége leszek a Musica Femina szimpózium ‘hang-nem-váltás’ beszélgetésének,

https://atlatszohang.hu

és ugyanaznap az év első TV interjújúra is sor kerül majd. A 2020. év koncertdátumai és helyszínei a HOME oldalon a posztomtól jobbra ——> olvashatóak. 😉
Addig is amíg jövőre újabb posztokkal jelentkezem, kívánok mindenkinek Boldog Új Évet, és minél több gyönyörű és izgalmas zenét 2020-ban is!

My Microcosmos/ Mikrokozmoszom

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Mikrokozmosz, as it is spelled originally, is of course the famous educational piano series composed by Béla Bartók between 1926 and 1939. This is where the idea of naming a new artistic agency is coming from. Long time friend, Béla Simon has started a new company based in Budapest by the name Microcosmos Agency, and I am truly happy and honored to share the roster with artists such as Andrea Rost, Arthur Fagen, Ödön Rácz, Péter Halász, Tamás Varga.
http://www.microcosmosartists.com

As for my own little mini-cosmos I am happy to report that I have completed a new chamber music piece commissioned by the Tsilumos Ensemble for the Salt New Music Festival and Symposium in Victoria, BC. The piece is called ‘From Left To Right’ and it is scored for five players (saxophone, viola, acoustic guitar, percussion and keyboard). Here are the program notes I have written.

RHYTHM, PITCH and SONIC QUALITIES, I mean nothing else. I could have given it the title: Music for Five, but I am not a minimalist composer. It could be called Sonata but then you’d think I am trying to ride the retro-classical wave. I could have titled this piece Quintet, but then who would care to listen? I always envied artists who could write a manifesto. I’m just not the type. Composing this piece is as close as I get to writing one.

This piece of music is not a statement. This piece of music has no program. This music does not want to be socially relevant. It’s not a deep-dive into my own psyche or into the collective unconscious.
This musical piece has no predetermined form or pre-fabricated building blocks. No fractals, no algorithms. No pop culture references. I even refuse to follow my own habits. No quotes, no musical allusions, no literally inspiration. Whatever your associations are they are your own.

I am 46 years old. I have been making music for 40 years. That should do it. I compose “from left to right”, one note after another. Form happens. Music is music is music. But there IS MUSIC, not just some attractive noise to accompany some visual attraction. That is important to me.
There is music:
RHYTHM, PITCH and SONIC QUALITIES,
my Mini-Manifesto if you wish.
Please, LISTEN!
Please, ENJOY!

If this is not quite my own Mikrokozmosz series, but a 19 minute long piece that I have immensely enjoyed composing. I am looking forward to the World Premiere at the end of August.

As promised on FaceBook let me write briefly about the new season of Ensemble UMZE. Since 2019-20 will be the first season of this Hungarian soloist-ensemble with me being the Artistic Director, I am truly happy to present 3 major concerts at the concert hall of the Budapest Music Center.
On September 13 Laszlo Tihanyi will conduct a program of pieces by Claude Vivier, Takemitsu and young Hungarian composers. The theme will be “Eastern Religion, Western Music”. Laszlo Sari, famous writer and Tibet-expert will be on stage with our musicians to share his thoughts with the audience. On January 17, as part of the Transparent Sound Festival, Balazs Horvath will be conducting a conversation concert comprised of music by female and male composers. Among other exciting and unusual things there will be an instrumental theater piece presented alongside with a beatboxer. Audience friendly interactive conversation, as it is always the case at this festival, will be a natural part of the presentation. On March 2020 I will be on the podium to conduct the World Premiere of my mono-concert-opera, The Transporters, based on a novel by Peter Esterhazy. In the first half of the program, to take the audience back to the times when The Transporters was written, we’ll be playing a two pieces from the early 80s. I am looking forward to Romantic Readings No.1 by Laszlo Vidovszky and to Laszlo Tihanyi’s The Silence of the Winds. In addition to these three concerts there will be a few interesting joint projects with the Peter Eötvös Foundation, including a concert at Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin.
Details of the program UMZE will be coming up before September on this website:
http://www.umze.hu

Ha nem is Bartók Mikrokozmosza, de az én saját bejáratú zenei majdnem-manifesztóm. A Tsilumos Ensemble megrendelésére elkészült 19 perces új kamarazenei művem a ‘Balról jobbra’, melynek bemutatója augusztus végén lesz a kanadai Victoriában. A fenti szöveg “RHYTHM, PITCH and SONIC QUALITIES, I mean nothing else…” a darab ismertetőszövege, és egyben (talán kissé paprikás) reakcióm is arra, hogy manapság 1) előbb kell megírni az ismertetőszöveget mint a darabot magát 2) amennyiben egy zenei mű nem reflektál valamilyen társadalmi vagy politikai problémára, akkor nincs is miről beszélni vele kapcsolatban 3) (még mindig) trend, hogy a zene csak az egyik, sokszor nem is legemlékezetesebb összetevője egy műnek, ami zenedarab esetében meglehetős hendikep, és hangok helyett vizuális, teátrális, irodalmi és egyéb effektekkel reméli(k) az áhított sikert elérni a szerző(k). A Tsilumos együttes minden koncertjét videón is rögzíti. Amint elérhető lesz a felvétel természetesen azonnal kiposztolom.

Örömmel jelentem be azt a hírt is, hogy mostantól az újonnan alakult Microcosmos menedzsment által (is) képviselt művész lettem, és büszkén osztozom Rost Andreával, Rácz Ödönnel, Halász Péterrel, Varga Tamással és további kiváló zenészekkel a Simon Béla által életrehívott ügynökség reprezentatív listáján.
http://www.microcosmosartists.com

“All music –smiles the minister –is incidental”

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Tomorrow (Sunday) at 7:30PM (Budapest time) singers Alinka Kozari, Katalin Karolyi, Gyorgy Philipp, Ensemble UMZE and myself will perform an extremely versatile and exciting program. All three pieces are Hungarian Premiere. The concert is part of the program of Budapest Spring Festival 2014. The venue for the concert is the amazingly beautiful concert hall of the Budapest Music Center.
http://www.bmc.hu

Balazs Horvath ‘Assemblage’ is a composition for ensemble with instrumental soloists who also act. The violinist is the musician who wants to take over the lead from the conductor; the horn player is the actual, real “soloist” (with very difficult material to play). The bugle player is dressed as a clown and behaves as such. The bassoonist acts like “your typical orchestral musician” (not my opinion, so direct your criticism directly towards the composer! ☺) The ensemble enters by playing on pots and pans while the conductor leads the procession in a drum major function (I do have a real drum major baton!) There are Four Scenes and for the 4th one the musicians move to the back of the hall mirroring their downstage seating. We even take a bow at the end with our back to the audience.
This is a very well written, very well thought through “instrumental theater” piece. It is a lot of fun and all of us are having a ball.
Visit the composer’s website here:
http://www.balazshorvath.com

‘Eight Songs for a Mad King’ by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CH, CBE, composer and conductor, Master of the Queen’s Music was written in 1969 and is still a fully valid, musically and dramatically engaging, powerful piece of music theater. (How does one become the Master of the Queen’s Music after being an experimental, avant-garde composer is a different story and should be the topic of a separate blog entry.) A strong and captivating performance is in the making with Gyorgy Philipp as “King George III” with some serious contemporary overtones in the direction of Andras Almasi-Toth. Let me just say, that while homeless people are banned from public spaces in the City of Budapest “our King George” is dressed as a bum and acts totally crazy and inappropriate. He won’t let security to remove him from the theater hall and ends up leaving on his own terms, exhausted, figuratively and literally naked with the accompaniment of the conductor and the drummer.
Here is some reading material about ‘8 Songs’:
http://www.classicalsource.com

The well-known story of the Pied Piper comes to life in the 40 minute long masterpiece by George Benjamin. Two singers (soprano and alto) are playing and acting all the characters. The Minister would do anything to get reelected. The Crowd wants only one thing, to get rid of the rats in the city. (Rats? Just watch out for the projected images in Andras Almasi-Toth’s interpretation! You’ll find even more contemporary political allusions… Let me state at this point, that this concert was supposed to happen over a year ago. The fact, that we are playing it just two weeks before the Hungarian general election is merely a coincidence! ☺) And the story of the Pied Piper continues…
George Benjamin’s music is almost unknown to the Hungarian audience. I am really happy to be able to present this major work of his with really great singers in both roles. Here is another great work about the power of music.
Read more about this chamber opera –about the power of music –, in a NY Times review from 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com

Tomorrow’s concert is a journey from Instrumental Theater through Monodrama to Chamber Opera; and music, of course is much more than just incidental.