Tag Archives: Gergely Vajda

Just A Quick Note

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I promise I will write more and in details later.
For now just the bare facts:

UMZF (New Hungarian Music Forum) composers’ competition, homage to Bela Bartok, final round for chamber ensemble compositions, October 6 at the Budapest Music Center with the Hungarian Radio Symphony, live radio broadcast
Marcell Dargay: Monumentum for The Eternal Immigrant
Mate Balogh: Melodiemusik
Alessio Elia: Disappearing Rainbows
Laszlo Sandor: Divertimento – Giuoco dei suoni
http://bmc.hu

UMZF (New Hungarian Music Forum) composers’ competition, homage to Bela Bartok, final round for orchestral compositions, October 7 at Palace of the Arts, Budapest (MUPA) with the Hungarian Radio Symphony, live radio broadcast
Andrej Slezak: inSpiral
Balazs Horvath: Werkmusik for Beatboxer and orchestra
Mate balogh: Quintet
Gyula Bankovi: Zoldfeny-udvaru ej (Greenlight-garden light)
http://mupa.hu

Two performances of the new version of “Spring Awakening”, a one act opera by Mate Bella at the Academy of Music, Budapest (October 9 & 11)
http://zeneakademia.hu

O farther, farther, farther sail!

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Just 20 years after it was deemed “obscene literature” by Boston district attorney, Oliver Stevens on March 1, 1882, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman became the inspiration for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No.1, A Sea Symphony.
Indeed, Leaves of Grass praises nature and the individual(!) human’s role in it and elevates the human form and mind to the level of topic of poetic praise. Suspicious at best! 🙂 I find it interesting how a young English composer picks a collection of poems by an American poet written in (mostly) free verse to put into music. Apparently Vaughan Williams carried a copy of Leaves of Grass with him at all times. I have to praise his openness and his imagination in selecting parts of Whitman’s work for the first, and longest of his 9 symphonies.
Tonight the Huntsville Community Chorus and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra with the help of vocal soloists Tiffany Bostic-Brown and Terrance Brown will celebrate the human spirit and the power of live classical music with the Huntsville premiere performance of A Sea Symphony by Vaughan Williams.
http://hso.org
Other compositions on our 61st Season opening concerts are:
Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. I hope you can join us on our MUSICAL JOURNEY of this season!

Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!

[The closing lines of Passage to India from Leaves of Grass]

#6-Misi-#6

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Tomorrow is the day of two concerts opening the new chamber orchestra series of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Budapest Music Center.
The first number on the show is the delightful Symphony #6, “The Morning” by Joseph Haydn. The humor and elegance of Haydn’s music always amazes me. This symphony also has a hidden violin concerto in it. It is scary how much Mozart owes to Haydn for his own violin concertos! In the slow movement the solo violin and the solo cello play an amazing duet, a variation on a Minuet-like theme. Sounds just like a Mozart violin concerto, I am telling you! In the first and the last movement the solo flute gets a lot of great music to play. What fun!
Watch this YouTube video to meet my soloist, Misi Boros! He is 11 years old and has the soul of a seasoned musician. I am not keen on child prodigies but Misi is something else. He is not only talented but also a fun and funny, intelligent human being.
http://youtube.com
For the major piece on the program I picked Beethoven’s Symphony #6, “Pastorale”. We are playing this “war horse” with a relatively small orchestra to match the space of the BMC concert hall. This decision gives me an opportunity to work on details that mostly get lost in a big orchestral setting. The end result is: lots of fun chamber music details in a very Haydn-esque Pastorale Symphony. Beethoven had his sense of humor, too!

Milano-Budapest-Huntsville

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Welcome back everyone!
I hope you all had a great summer and you are ready for the next season of great classical music.
My 2015-16 season starts on September 4 with a concert performance of Lady Sarashina by Peter Eötvös at festival Triennial di Milano as part of the Milano World Fair.
http://triennale.org
I will be conducting the cast of the October 2014 Budapest production and the Hungarian Radio Symphony at Teatro dell’Arte.
See the blog post about the Budapest production here:
http://gregoryvajda.com

I have the honor of conducting the first two shows of a brand new concert series with the Hungarian Radio Symphony at the Budapest Music Center.
On the program:
Haydn: Symphony No. 6 “Le Matin”
Haydn: Piano Concerto in D-major
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale”

The solo piano part of the Haydn concerto will be played by Misi Boros, an amazing young talent, winner of the Hungarian classical music TV talent show “Virtuozok”
http://bmc.hu
There will be two shows, one at 4pm, one at 7:30pm on Saturday, September 12. The Hungarian Radio will do its usual live broadcast that you can listen to online.

After Milano and Budapest I am ready for Huntsville. I will lead the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra in a blockbuster program of music by Britten and Vaughan Williams. This will be my first time conducting ‘A Sea Symphony’ by RVW. You don’t want to miss the amazing voices of Tiffany Bostic-Brown, Terrance Brown and the Huntsville Community Chorus! If you are in or around Huntsville on September 18 you don’t want to miss this performance!
Happy New Season!

Conduct Me!

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Just got home from an hour long live radio interview at Klub Radio. I spoke about the past, about Hungary and the U.S., about conducting, playing the clarinet and composition.
I got to speak about Peter Eötvös
http://eotvospeter.com
the Huntsville Symphony
http://hso.org
the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
http://mrze.hu
and first and foremost about the Armel Opera Festival.
http://armelfestival.org
If you happen to speak or at least understand Hungarian, you are welcome to listen to the show online here 🙂
http://klubradio.hu
The show is called ‘Örömzene’ which translates as “jam session for fun”.
The last segment of the interview was all about the two hour daily program of the Armel Opera Festival in the frame of the the Sziget Festival
http://szigetfestival.com
the biggest rock-pop music summer festival in Central Europe.
Starting tomorrow the Armel Opera Festival presents a two hour long fun and interactive musical program including a series of “Opera Sitcom” performed by the students of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, directed by Andras Almasi Toth. I’ll be leading the audience in an interesting improvisation exercise based on a composition by Peter Eötvös called “Triangel”. Audience members will be distributed triangles of all shapes and sizes and I will play along with me, also hitting three different size triangles wherever I can. The program ends with ‘Conduct Me!’ where brave audience members can get a crash course in conducting from me and get in front of the orchestra and singers and conduct live. On the rep: Aria of The Queen of the Night, Brindisi by Verdi, Prelude and Habanera from Carmen.
I am looking forward to the challenge of engaging audiences that are not necessarily familiar with classical music and opera and make them realize how much fun it actually is to discover Mozart and even contemporary classical music for yourself. I am also happy to share the same island (on river Danube) with several thousand of music lovers and artists like Robbie Williams, the Gogol Bordello or Mariza.

Summer Fun with Bartok, Sibelius and Opera

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After taking a short summer break and using most of it to compose Clarinet Symphony (premiere next February with the Hungarian Radio Symphony at Palace of the Arts in Budapest) I am ready to pick up the baton again this weekend. Lajos Balogh, Music Director of the Portland Festival Symphony invited me to guest conduct at two of the PFS summer park-concerts. I get to conduct two of my long time favorites, Romanian Folk Dances by Bartok and Finlandia by Sibelius. It is great to make music again with some of the retired musicians of the Oregon Symphony and other players from the area I have worked with before.
I will be sharing the stage with Lajos Balogh
http://portlandfestivalsymphony.org
and with
Michael Allen Harrison
http://www.tengrands.com

Yes, it is hot out there, but these parks are so beautiful and you will be able to find a spot with some shade for sure. Come out and enjoy great music and some outdoor picnic fun!
http://portlandfestivalsymphony.org/venues.html#cathedralpark

Soon I will be taking off to Hungary where I will be leading some fun, interactive musical programs at Sziget Festival
http://szigetfestival.com

Every day between 6 and 8PM The Armel Opera Festival presents a program of ‘Opera Sitcom Series’ and some contemporary music improvisation as well as letting audience members conduct the Armel Festival Orchestra in famous opera numbers like the aria of The Queen of the Night. “Sziget” is not only the biggest rock/pop-music festival of Central Europe but also a great place to promote classical music and opera.

Please check out the website of the Huntsville Symphony as well! Single tickets are on sale for our 2015-16 season!
http://www.hso.org

Hope you are all enjoying your summer and getting just the right amount of daily classical music! 🙂

Armel Opera Competition and Festival 2015

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I feel really fortunate that I got to spend the last 10+ days in the U.S. It is always amazing to witness historic changes real time. No matter what your opinion is on the three decisions made by SCOTUS, I am sure you all agree that they qualify most definitely for a historic event.
When not following history in the making I spent my time writing Clarinet Symphony for the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and making sketches for a libretto for a possible new opera.

This week I am back in Hungary. I am honored to be on the Jury of the Final Competition of Armel Festival.
http://armelfestival.org/en/
Five performances from five countries with five you singers in competition roles. The festival starts with The Magic Flute directed by Robert Alfoldi.
http://wikipedia.org
The performance is officially sold out. You can all watch it live on MEZZO TV
http://concert.arte.tv/fr

and you can also vote on your favorite performance after watching all of them. You might be able to catch an interview with me in one of the intermissions.
Stay tuned for more posts on Armel 2015!

Equal Crossing Roads

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I’ve spent the last week at the Budapest Music Center teaching conducting at the “Boulez 90” masterclass for conductors and composers.
The masterclass was organized by the International Eotvos Institute Foundation
http://eotvospeter.com
The final concert of the master class, conducted by select students can be listened to live here
http://radio.hu Just click on Radio/ Bartok and start listening at 1:35PM EST
The Eotvos Foundation printed some great fliers for the master class and the concert as well. They picked traffic signs like “Equal Crossing Roads”
http://wikipedia.org
to represent the main message of the events.
Philippe Manoury
http://wikipedia.org
and
Matthias Pintscher
http://matthiaspintscher.com
are crossing roads for two days here in Budapest. They arrived yesterday, gave lectures and participated in a discussion for the ‘MUSTmeet Composer’ Series with my moderation and will be here for the concert tomorrow. The Hungarian Radio is doing interviews with both of them and the Goethe Institut Budapest, one of the sponsors of the events is making a video about the master class and the concert as well. I will post the video on FaceBook as soon as it becomes available.

Credits to my fellow professors: Peter Eotvos, Jean Philippe Wurtz
http://ensemble-linea.com
to THReNSeMBle
http://www.thrensemble.com
and to the staff of the International Eotvos Institute Foundation for making this master course a success!
I had a lot of fun!

Program, Play, Repeat, Keep It Interesting

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The most difficult set of concerts I have ever done in my life was a 5 day-8 concert series with City Music Cleveland. Coming up with 8 different yet valid versions of Beethoven 8 in just 5 days was an extremely difficult task. The whole point of live music performance is to do things differently from one performance to the next. Whenever one gets to perform great war horses, like Carmina Burana, the pressure is on. You have to deliver your own version of a master piece without losing the true spirit of it. This is the real magic trick!
On Thursday the Rochester Oratorio Society, the Rochester Philharmonic, Leslie Ann Bradley, Anton Belov and Anthony Webb and myself performed a truly operatic, dramatic and at some points extremely funny Carmina Burana. I am looking forward to pulling another and different [!] rabbit out of my hat tonight.
http://rpo.org
I very much enjoyed sinking my teeth into Roberto Sierras eccentric ‘Fandangos’ and Ginastera’s ‘Four Dances from Estancia’ as well. Lots of percussion, lots of groove, lots of energy!

It is a real honor and a lot of fun to conduct the season finale classical set with the RPO! These two concerts also mark the end of my 2014-15 season. No more conducting until a couple of summer concerts in August.

Starting next week I will be teaching a 10 day master class at the Budapest Music Center.
http://bmc.hu

At the end of June I’ll be one of the judges of the International Armel Opera Competition and Festival. http://armelfestival.org

Soon I will be posting about the 2015-16 season, too.
Stay tuned!

Faust, An Eternal Will

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“I, Faust, an Eternal Will” -sings Csaba Szegedi
http://csabaszegedi.com
in the role of Doctor Faust in the unfinished opera by Ferruccio Busoni.
http://wikipedia.org
Completed by Antony Beaumont, edited and cut to 90 minutes by director Mate Szabo
http://port.hu
and myself tomorrow’s performance will be the Hungarian premiere of this early 20th Century opera. As part of the “Faust 225 Festival” I will be leading the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera and chorus and select principal singers in two performances only.
I am happy to have hundreds of opera lovers join me on Friday and Sunday, along with some of my Huntsville friends to enjoy this unique work at the beautiful downtown Budapest building of the State Opera
http://opera.hu
Both shows are virtually sold out.
Almost two years ago I posted about all the operas and ballets I had the pleasure to conduct during my professional career so far.
http://gregoryvajda.com
As of today I am happy to add the following operas to this list:
Ernst von Dohnanyi: The Tenor
Peter Eotvos: Lady Sarashina
Ferruccio Busoni: Doktor Faust