Lots of Work and Plenty of Travel Already in 2018

Hello there and a Happy Belated New Year! I am writing this post at the Atlanta airport lounge, waiting for my flight to Huntsville, replacing the one that was just cancelled a couple of hours ago. Yes, IT IS WINTERTIME and it is coming down hard on the South now, after hitting the North-East of the US.
After a demanding and successful trip to Taiwan and Mainland China (with the Kaohsiung Symphony then with the players of the Hungarian Radio Symphony) I traveled back to Budapest for a couple of days (FYI Turkish Airlines is great!) then packed again to drive to the city of Pecs, where I got to conduct the great Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra. We presented an exciting program, including my piece, Drums Drums Drums, of which we played the Hungarian premiere. Other pieces on the program were: Weill: Little Threepenny Music, Stravinsky: Concerto in D for string orchestra and Hindemith’s powerful Concertmusic for brass and strings. As for Drum Drums Drums, it is now the third set of soloists playing it (however the drum-set part was played by the amazing Gergo Borlai again, who has been part of the World Premiere in Huntsville in 2015), and the piece, I am happy to report, works really well for the audience.
After spending a couple of days in beautiful Southern Hungary (Pecs is only about a 2hr drive from Budapest) I was ready to fly to the Big Apple. Representing Armel Festival as its Artistic Director I have attended 5 shows at the Prototype Festival. I have seen staged concert albums, multi-media music theater works and operas in the traditional sense. It was an impressive line up. I hope that Prototype Festival can become a partner for Armel by as early as 2020, and together we can bring some interesting new works to Budapest, Vienna, and to the screen of ARTE TV as well. Yes, IT IS WINTERTIME, and NYC was way colder than usual. However in the summer I always complain about humidity and high temperatures in manhattan. 🙂
I am ready for a couple of extremely exciting and challenging programs in the next couple of weeks. On Saturday with the Huntsville Symphony I will be conducting Brahms’ Haydn Variations, Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, and sharing the stage again with Elina Vähälä from Finland, who’ll be playing Berg’s beautiful Violin Concerto. More information on the concert here:

http://www.hso.org

After Huntsville it’s Budapest time again, and time for music about machines with the Danubia Symphony at the Liszt Academy. Yes, you read that right, MACHINES!

More about that later!

Until then, here is the link for your enjoyment:

http://www.odz.hu

Holiday Wishes from Around the World

It’s time for the last entry of the calendar year. Why? Because I will be on my way to Taiwan next Monday, then off to China on December 26, and I won’t be back until early January. This will be my first ever trip to Asia ever. I will be conducting the Kaohsiung Symphony Orchestra in an all Viennese program, again with the great American soprano, Rebecca Nelsen singing. After that comes a multi-stop concert tour with the musicians of the Hungarian Radio Symphony. We will be playing Beethoven Symphony No.8 along with Strauss’ Kaiserwaltzer and other great and fun pieces.
As for what happened since my last blog entry, here is a short summary. On November 14 I have conducted a program with the Hungarian radio Symphony at the Palace of the Arts (MUPA), Budapest. The program was made up of two Mahler compositions, Songs of a Wayfarer and Symphony No.1 “Titan”, and the famous ‘Cantus Artcticus’, concerto for birds and orchestra by Rautavaara. The Radio Symphony and I have made history by playing a Rautavaara work for the very first time in the (now about 18yo) history o Palace of the Arts. After a short and sweet Thanksgiving break with friends in Milwaukee, Wisconsin I have gotten a lot of things done in Huntsville in preparation for season 18-19. Last week after spending two full days at the Budapest Music Center, composer-conductor Peter Eötvös and myself have selected 4 young composers and 2 conductors for the multi-year mentor program of the Peter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation. Two days ago I have spent a day working with the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra in Pécs.
In the meantime I have finished Part One of my new-old Puppet Opera, The Giant Baby (premiere early July, 2018 at the Armel Festival) and have sent the vocal scores to the singers. I am planning to finish working on the opera latest by mid March, 2018. More on it later!
Check out my pretty busy schedule of the first three months of calendar year 2018 here ———————————>
If you are on the main page of my blog site just look to the right! 😉
I wish all of you a Blessed Holiday Season and all the best for the New Year!
See you here again in January!