"I used to be very intense ... I simply wanted to make an impact on the world ..." Mihály Dresch, this year's Fonogram and Kossuth P. winner, will perform at Müpa Budapest at the end of September. The concert will shine a spotlight on both his jazzy (Dresch Quartet) and...
"A musical duel does not use weapons to devastate, but instruments to create" - a poignant phrase on the Music Encyclopedia blog. Indeed, the genre is so ancient that even 17th-century Italian painter Pietro Antonio Novelli captured a musical contest between Apollo and Marsyas, who competed on different instruments. On...
On 18 September, a Dutch roots-rock band, the Dawn Brothers, will be performing at Müpa Budapest. The evening will also feature the band of Ripoff Raskolnikov, a blues musician who lives a split life between Graz and Vas County. Although the members of the Dawn Brothers and the Ripoff Raskolnikov...
Funk, pop and jazz in a big band setting: the 77-year-old group, which has also played with Ella Fitzgerald and Robbie Williams, will perform at Müpa Budapest. The Metropole Orkest, a vibrant, experimental and ever-renewing Dutch orchestra, will open the Bridging Europe Festival on 16 September at the Béla Bartók...
Returning to their signature sound, Irie Maffia will be taking to the stage at Müpa Budapest with a reggae-style set. In addition to the eleven-piece band, the 21 September concert will feature Viki Lábas of Margaret Island, Miksa M. László, frontman of Ladánybene 27, and 20-year-old singer-songwriter Azahriah, who will...
Soulful plainness, pure melodies, nostalgia: the secret to the success of indie folk-pop duo Kings of Convenience is their unparalleled clarity of sound and unpretentious sentimentality. The Norwegian duo of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe comes to Budapest after a long international tour to relax the audience at Müpa...
Jazz saxophonist Tineke Postma, chosen to be European Jazz Musician of the Year 2021 by the Académie du Jazz, is always up to something exciting. Recently she was commissioned to build bridges between two European cities, as well as people of different backgrounds, with the help of music. What will...
The Kozma Orsi Quartet with the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra of Veszprém and Tamás Szabó Kimmel will portray the character of Barbra Streisand, who turns 80 this year. At the 28 August BS! evening, the two-time Oscar-winning, nine-time Golden Globe-winning American singer and actress will approach her repertoire from the jazz...
Each year, at the end of August jazz tunes pour out in Müpa Budapest for three days. This year will be no different, with the Jazz Time Festival, with an opening programme that is already a real treat for enthusiasts of the genre. The Echoes of Ellington concert will feature...
I wrote about Kurt Elling four years ago that he is an unreachable international star whom we can only try to understand through his albums. You can imagine how excited I was when I heard about getting the chance to talk to the renowned, Grammy-awarded musician on the phone on...
For genuine music, the borders are just jagged lines drawn in red ink on a map. Crisscrosses that have nothing to do with the reality of things. Another proof of the above thesis is just a few days away: on Thursday evening, Azeri-born Alim Qasimov and Persian Alireza Ghorbani will...
Mihály Gotthard and Dani Szebényi are old "collaborators". Ever since they met behind the scenes of a jazz competition - more than a decade ago -, they have been an almost inseparable duo. It's not just the fact that they went to the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music at the...
Richard Wagner’s first serious success was with the opera Rienzi in 1842. This is more than just an early work: Wagner found the voice here that he subsequently used in his most mature and popular pieces. This year, the Budapest Wagner Days closes with this opera in a concert form....
After many years of learning the language, I wasn’t scared of the idea of talking to Kady Diarra in French. The singer, coming from Burkina Faso, is often mentioned in articles to be from a griot family, which made me remember other times hearing this phenomena in the context of...
Yellowjackets celebrated its 30th anniversary ten years ago with a huge concert in the Müpa. This fusion jazz band has seen – and survived – many changes in style and members, and now they are back for another round anniversary. I asked saxophonist Bob Mintzer, who has been playing with...
At the end of April, another world star will arrive in Hungary: Sergei Krylov will play Mendelssohn s Violin concerto and Bartók's Rhapsody No.1 for the audience in Győr and Debrecen, but the concert will also feature a terrifying Witches' Sabbath and a naughty Hungarian folk song. The Russian violinist's...
Müpa celebrates Earth Day with one of the most monumental and unforgettable pieces from the history of music. Leonard Bernstein called Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth) Mahler’s greatest symphony which contrasts the everlasting beauty of nature with the short and insignificant human existence. Nowadays, when climate...
There was a time when musicians kind of felt obligated to create their own versions for jazz standards. Then there was a time when playing covers seemed like a lack of originality. Nowadays, luckily, those days are gone and nobody cares if a new band becomes famous with a good...
Péter Eötvös was fifty when he started writing his first opera, Three Sisters. He completed his latest operatic work, Sleepless in 2020; following its première in Berlin, a concert performance of the work arrives on stage at Müpa. How many books does he read when looking for a subject, and...
In the afterlife of Béla Bartók’s music, the expiry of copyright protection for his works (2016) brought a significant change. In the years that have elapsed since, there have been a number of outstanding adaptations of his compositions, into which new life has been breathed – not surprisingly – in...
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