Iván Fischer, conductor, was ranked sixth in the international top 10 conductors' list.Continue reading
Composer and conductor Péter Eötvös, an outstanding figure in contemporary music, turned 80 years old on January 2.
He was born in Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc), Transylvania. His parents fled the front to Hungary at the end of the Second World War and settled in Miskolc (northern Hungary). He learned to play the piano from an early age. At the age of fourteen, composer and teacher Zoltán Kodály enrolled him in the group of special talents at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where he studied composition and later graduated as a conductor in Cologne, Germany.
From 1968 to 1976, he was a member of the Stockhausen Ensemble, with which he spent six months at the 1970 Osaka World Exposition, and from 1978 to 1991, he was artistic director of the Ensemble intercontemporain, founded by French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.
Photo: Péter Eötvös. Via Facebook / Peter Eötvös Foundation
As a conductor, he regularly worked with some of the world’s greatest orchestras over the past decades, and was first guest conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. He has conducted the most famous opera companies and the world’s most prestigious festivals, and has worked with the greatest stage directors.
One of the best-known contemporary composers, his experience in electro-acoustics and conducting led him to write operas. His first work, based on Chekhov’s Three Sisters, premiered in Lyon in 1998 to critical acclaim. His operas are based on literary works. Péter Eötvös has also written numerous vocal, orchestral, and instrumental pieces.
“With all my operas I address the audience of the present time, I do not update the stories, but try to see the identities that are still present despite the socio-historical development. I use contemporary literature, regardless of cultural differences. We live in the same time: literature, music, and its audience,” he sums up his philosophy.
In 1991, he established the International Eötvös Institute Foundation and in 2004, the Péter Eötvös Foundation for Contemporary Music, located in the Budapest Music Center. He has been organizing international masterclasses for conductors and composers for several years. In 2018, he launched the Foundation’s mentoring program.
He has been awarded several renowned prizes for his work, including the French Order of Arts and Letters, the Kossuth Prize, and the Order of St. Stephen, the highest Hungarian state award. He is member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, the Berlin Academy of Arts, and the Royal Swedish Academy.
Via kultura.hu; Featured Image: Facebook / Budapest Music Center
