A number of Hungarian and foreign artists will perform at the 10-day Kodály Arts Festival, which starts on Monday, the organizers told MTI.
On the occasion of the 140th anniversary of Zoltán Kodály’s birth, the Kecskemét Kodály Arts Festival will offer a rich variety of musical genres at the city’s emblematic cultural venues and public spaces between July 19 and 30.
The Kecskemét Symphony Orchestra will perform the opening concert in the Hírös Agóra Cultural and Youth Center, with clarinetist and conductor, Andreas Ottensamer.
The concert, titled Heavenly Sounds, will feature works by Erika Miklósa, soprano coloratura, and Dániel Somogyi-Tóth, organist, and others by Handel, Vivaldi, and Purcell. The concert in the Reformed Church will feature trumpeter, László Tóth.
Opera singer Andrea Rost will perform well-known and lesser-known archaic songs with a very unique sound and arrangement, alongside arrangements of works by Erkel and Kodály, with the help of cimbalom player Miklós Lukács and the Budapest Klezmer Band at the Pannon Songs birthday concert in the Great Church.
The members of Jazzation, Hungary’s premier jazz acapella ensemble, will offer a special selection from the best of their repertoire at their concert in Romkert.
As a novelty, the organizers are also preparing an opera for fans of the genre. The Budapest Chamber Opera’s production of Mozart’s comic opera Bastien und Bastienne will be performed in the Lutheran Church with the Savaria Baroque Orchestra.
Clarinetist Lajos Rozmán and pianist Marcell Dargay will perform The Unknown Clarinet in the Kodály Institute’s auditorium. János Bence Samodai and Jácint Földi on trumpet, soprano singer Yvette Mondok, and organist Áron Dóbisz will perform together in the Friends’ Church.
The National Youth Choir, led by Péter Erdei and Norbert László Nemes, will perform in the Piarist Church. The program will include Zoltán Kodály’s Jesus and the Kufars, as well as works by Lajos Bárdos, György Orbán, Zsófia Tallér, Barna Szabó, Máté Bella, Krisztina Megyeri, and Miklós Csemiczky.
The organizers will surprise the children with a show titled Secrets by Szilvia Bognár, in which poems by Sándor Weöres, Sándor Kányádi, and Ágnes Nemes Nagy will be performed in the courtyard of the Youth Home, accompanied by folk songs.
As part of the festival’s program, an exhibition of paintings by János Aknay and a Zoltán Kodály photo exhibition selected from the collection of the Hungarian Museum of Photography will open in the Hírös Agóra.
After a short performance by Kecskemét artists, the Kodály Point on Deák Ferenc Square will welcome enterprising music fans who would like to show their skills for a few minutes or share their thoughts with the audience.
The closing concert of the festival will take place on July 29 in the main square of Kecskemét, with the Kecskemét Symphony Orchestra conducted by Huba Hollókői and the Kecskemét City Ballet.
The full program of the Kecskemét Kodály Arts Festival is available here.
Featured image via the Kodály Arts Festival’s Facebook page
