The Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival has been created with the intention of forming a tradition. Its aim is to present the diverse musical culture and artistic activity of the peoples living in the Carpathian Basin, to reinforce their collaboration in the field of music, and to discover and support young talents.
It cannot be emphasized enough how noble the force of music is in the community of peoples in the Carpathian Basin, showing the world the hard work and greatness that the composers, performers, musicologists and creative communities born here put into the creation of culture.
It is our belief that music penetrates even those walls that at first seem to be impenetrable, it brings people, communities, and cultures closer to one another, with fertile power it builds and nurtures the unparalleled culture of the Carpathian Basin, it brings traditions resoundingly to life, with overflowing beauty it smooths over misunderstandings, and in place of unrest it brings peace, collaboration, a belief in the eternal Good, and solace.
One special aspect of the festival is that the concerts are on consecutive days but in different cities and towns in the Carpathian Basin: Budapest, Miskolc, Debrecen, Subotica, Bratislava, Uzhhorod, and Cluj-Napoca.
As part of the festival we are holding masterclasses in Bratislava and Subotica, a musicology conference in Debrecen, and we are holding the Carpathian Basin International Piano Competition in Budapest.
The planners and founders of the Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival are: pianist Apolka Bonnyai and her husband, Dr. István Bajkai, member of parliament.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Norbert S. MEDGYESY PhD (Győr, 1977) is a educational historian who deals with the regional effects of secondary and higher education in Hungary in the 17th-19th centuries, the colourful world of school culture in the Baroque era, especially school theatre and music life, and its worldly patrons. Since 1997 he has been a member of the Old Hungarian Drama Research Group. His research field also extends to the Csíksomlyó mystery plays, and the relationship between folk chants of the 17th and 18th centuries (primarily those historical in content) and folk tradition. He compiled and systematized the unique traditions of the village of Perenye in Vas County. The findings of his investigations have been published in three monographs and many studies, partly supported by the Bolyai János Research Scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and currently with support from the Arts Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. To present these treasures in the 21st century, in 2002 he founded the Blessed Eusebius Theatre Company (BÖSZK), whose members have to date presented 15 Baroque school dramas and three folk plays in 25 venues in the Carpathian Basin; some performances can be seen on the Hungarian Academy of Arts Publishers channel http://t.ly/dxYDMa.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
László GOMBOS, musicologist and holder of the Bence Szabolcsi Prize, was born in Szombathely in 1967. He studied piano, organ and music theory at Szombathely Conservatory, and from 1985 in Budapest at the Liszt Academy of Music at the Department of Choral Conducting and Music Theory. In 1995 he graduated in musicology and music teaching at the same institute. During the next three years he took part in the PhD programme in musicology. Since 1990 he has taught music history in the Városmajor Grammar School (1990-1998), at the University of Debrecen (1998–2002), and at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest (1995-2016). Besides this he has been a researcher at the Institute for Musicology in Budapest since 1994. In 2002–2009 he worked in the Ernő Dohnányi Archives, and since 2009 he has worked in the Museum of Music History in the same institute. His main research field is Hungarian music at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Hungarian concert life, and oeuvres of such composers as Franz Liszt, Jenő Hubay, Ernő Dohnányi, Béla Bartók, Károly Aggházy, Ferenc Farkas and Sándor Szokolay. He has organized over thirty musical exhibitions throughout Europe on topics of Hungarian music history, in Budapest, Berlin, Brussels, Ferrara, Rome, Szeged, Nagykanizsa, Geneva, Lausanne, Moscow. He has published about 200 studies, articles, and books. In 2002–2007 he edited the Dohnányi Yearbook, and since 2010 he has published catalogues, study booklets and other publications for the Museum of Music History. He is vice-president of the Jenő Hubay Society and president of the Hubay Foundation and the Budapest branch of the Hungarian Liszt Society. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Veronika KUSZ PhD (*1980), musicologist, senior research fellow at the the Institute for Musicology, Budapest. She graduated in musicology at the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, in 2003, where she earned her PhD in 2010. As a Fulbright -scholar, she spent an academic year in 2005‒2006 at Florida State University, Tallahassee, conducting research at the American Dohnányi collections. She has been working at Institute for Musicology, Budapest, since 2002. She has been advisor and lecturer at the Doctoral School of the Liszt Academy of Music since 2015. She has been awarded several scholarships (Fulbright, 2005‒2006; Kodály 2005, 2006, 2008; Bolyai, 2015‒2018, 2019‒2022, and ÚNKP, 2019‒2021) and awards: the Academic Youth Prize (by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 2016), Bolyai Plaquette (2019), and the Kroó György Plaquette. She has published articles in Notes, American Music, Journal of the American Harp Society, The Pan, and Studia Musicologica among others. Her books include: Járdányi Pál / Pál Járdányi (Mágus 2004, second edition: BMC, 2016), Dohnányi amerikai évei [Dohnányi’s American years] (Rózsavölgyi, 2015), A Wayfaring Stranger: Ernst von Dohnányi’s American Years (University of California Press, 2020), Dohnányi Ernő: Válogatott írások és nyilatkozatok [Ernő Dohnányi: Selected writings and statements] (Rózsavölgyi, 2020). |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dr. Emőke SOLYMOSI-TARI (PhD) is a music historian and an ordinary member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. She completed her studies in Budapest. She gained a piano teacher’s certificate at the Teacher Training Instituted of the Liszt Academy of Music, then graduated in music teaching, and in musicology, in the University Section. She also has a higher vocational qualification in cultural management. From 1988 she began working as a music journalist. From 1995 for more than two decades she taught musical repertoire at the King Saint István Grammar School of Music; since 2001 she has taught music history at the Liszt Academy, from 2021 as an associate professor. It was here that in 2013 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the stage works of László Lajtha. Since 2014 she has been director of the Art Theory Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2026 karpatfesztival