UMZE (short for Új Magyar Zene Egyesülete in Hungarian, translated in English “New Hungarian Music Society”) Ensemble gave its debut concert at the 1997 Budapest Autumn Festival.
The parallel between the original New Hungarian Music Society—formed by Bartok, Kodaly and Leo Weiner in 1911—and today’s UMZE ensemble is apparent as they continue their ambition to keep the now classic compositions of the 20th century in the repertoire, and to bring the most recent compositions of both Hungarian and foreign composers to the listener.
The newborn UMZE has become an asset to Hungarian music in the past ten years. Lacking regular funding, the ensemble first operated on an occasional basis using Amadinda’s infrastructure. The UMZE appeared at the most prestigious Hungarian festivals, such as the Budapest Spring and Budapest Autumn, and gave concerts in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Avignon and Zagreb. They took part in the Wiener Festwochen and participated in one of the most important new music forums, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. UMZE also released four CDs, three on the BMC label.
The New Hungarian Music Society’s founding members include many prominent figures of Hungarian music, such as György Ligeti, György Kurtág, András Szőllősy, Péter Eötvös, Zoltán Jeney, Ferenc Rados, László Dobszay, Miklós Perényi ,and Lászlo Vidovszky as president. UMZE’s executive board elected Zoltán Rácz as Artistic Director three years ago, commissioned Laszlo Gőz, Director of Budapest Music Center, as its Managing Director, and Péter Eötvös as honorary Principal Conductor. For a second consecutive year a grant from the cultural ministry enables UMZE Ensemble to take on a regular schedule.
Among the highlights of last season’s concerts are a special tribute concert to American composer Steve Reich, a guest appearance at Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival in Hamburg with an all-Ligeti program, a Louis Andriessen tribute concert, and UMZE’s annual Hommage á Ligeti concert.
The music of Peter Eötvös is featured regularly on the programs of orchestras, contemporary music ensembles, and festivals worldwide. As composer-conductor, he has led projects focusing on his work in Paris, London, Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, Lucerne, Göteborg, and other art centers. His operas, Le Balcon, Angels in America, and Lady Sarashina followed the lead of his Three Sisters by generating an ever-increasing number of new productions. Eötvös’s most recent opera Love and Other Demons was premiered to great critical acclaim by the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in August 2008.
Peter Eötvös’s conducting activities are characterized by long-term relationships with a number of key orchestras and institutions: the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Intercontemporain, and Netherlands Radio. Since 2003 he has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and will serve as Principle Guest Conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra starting in the 2009–2010 season.
His Former positions have included the principal guest conductor at the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1985–1988), chief conductor of the Radio Chamber Orchestra of Hilversum (1994– 2005), as well as first guest conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra (1992–1995), the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (2003–2005), and the National Philharmonic Orchestra Budapest (1998–2001).
Eötvös is generally regarded as one of the leading interpreters of contemporary music. He performed regularly with the Stockhausen Ensemble between 1968 and 1976, and collaborated with the electronic music studio of the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne from 1971 to 1979. In 1978, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he conducted the inaugural concert of IRCAM in Paris, and was subsequently named musical director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, a post he held until 1991.
His teaching activities are equally important to him as his composition and performance career, especially his work at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe since 1992, and at the International Eötvös Institute and Foundation for young conductors and composers in Budapest, which he founded in 1991.
Peter Eötvös’s works have been recorded by BIS AG, BMC, DGG, ECM, KAIROS, COL LEGNO. His music is published by Editio Musica (Budapest), Ricordi (Munich), Salabert (Paris), and Schott Music (Mainz).
Károly Bojtos
Aurél Holló
Zoltán Rácz
Zoltán Váczi
Considered among the most original and versatile percussion groups, the Amadinda Percussion Group was founded by four percussionists following their graduation from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest in 1984. Its mission is to introduce Hungarian audiences to percussion music from around the world and inspire composers to write new works for percussion.
In recent years, the Amadinda—whose name refers to a traditional xylophone from Uganda—has been researching the music of traditional percussion cultures. To expand percussion repertoire, the group’s members have composed their own pieces and transcribed outstanding classical works.
The Amadinda Percussion Group has received the Hungarian Composers Award several times and was been honored with the Ferenc Liszt Award. For their exceptional artistic achievements, the ensemble received the prestigious state award of the Republic of Hungary—the Kossuth Award—in 2004.
Among those with whom the Amadinda Percussion Group has collaborated are John Cage, Bruno Canino, Peter Eötvös, Rosemary Hardy, András Keller, Zoltán Kocsis, György Kurtág, György Ligeti, András Schiff, and James Wood. The ensemble’s extensive discography covers the entire spectrum of the prercussion repertoire, and includes the complete works for percussion of John Cage, as well as works by Eötvös and Ligeti.
In high demand as teachers, the Amadina often holds master classes at such institutions as Yale University, The Juilliard School, and at several conservatories in Japan and Germany. The group also appears regularly at music festivals in London, Huddersfield, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Milano, Hong Kong, Sydney, Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague.
The Amadinda Percussion Group will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2009.
A renown interpreter of 20th-century music, Natalia Zagorinskaya sung vocal cycles by Edison Denisov and his Les Pleurs; Stravinsky’s Les Noces; Berg’s Lulu Suite; Castiglioni’s Terzina; Luigi Dallapiccola’s Tre Poemi and Commiato; György Kurtág’s Messages of the Late R. V. Troussova, Scène d'un roman, and Requiem for the Beloved; Elliott Carter’s A Mirror on which to dwell; Jean Barraque’s Chant apres chant; and Pierre Boulez’s Improvisation sur Mallarme I/II with such ensembles as Contrechamps, Nieuw Ensemble in Amsterdam, and Schoenberg Ensemble.
Zagorinskaya was born in Moscow. At the age of 7 she began to study playing the piano at the Central Music School at the Moscow Conservatory. After graduating from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory (as student of Vera Kudriavtseva) she joined the Moscow Helikon Opera company as a principal and since then has performed in most of major productions.
With the Helikon she has toured the US, England, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Spain, and Lebanon (Al Bustan Festival).
Among her opera roles during recent years there are Emilia Marty in the Russian premiere of Janáček’s The Makropoulos Affair, Blanch in the Russian premiere of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites, and the title role in the Helikon’s production of Dvořak’s Rusalka.
Zagorinskaya has appeared at the various concert halls, including Los Angeles Radio Hall, Radio France Hall, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. She has also performed at the Edinburgh Festival, the Helsinki Christmas Festival (Bach’s Mass in B Minor), and repeatedly takes part in the Festival La Batie in Geneva. She has sung with the Düsseldorf Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon.
Zagorinskaya also took part in performances of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 with Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra in a live broadcast in 2004, and at the Victoria Hall in Geneve in 2005. In 2006 she performed Alexander Zemlinsky’s Lyrische symfonie (seven songs from poems by Rabindranath Tagore) at Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam) and Haarlem Philharmonie. In 2008 she performed Franz Schreker’s Songs (Vom ewigen Leben) at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague under Reinbert de Leeuw and Kurtág’s Troussova at the Aldeburgh Festival.
Born in Hungary, Katalin Károlyi studied singing with Noëlle Barker and Julia Hamari. She went on to set up the Studio Versailles Opéra with Rachel Yakar and René Jacobs. Since then she has concentrated Baroque opera, chamber music, and contemporary music.
Károlyi has performed at festivals including Aix-en-Provence, Ravinia Chicago, Ille-de-France and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. She also appears with leading opera companies, including the Opéra National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala, Teatro Colon, and in concert at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore and Barbican Halls, and the Cité de la Musique, Paris. She has sung under conductors such as Yehudi Menuhin, William Christie, Phillip Herreweghe, Laurence Equilbey, Paul van Nevel, Peter Srottner, Bernard Tétu, Roland Hayrabedian, and David Robertson.
In 2000 György Ligeti composed Sippal, dobbal, nádihegedüvel for Károlyi and the Amadinda Percussion Group, and she has given numerous performances with them, as well as with the London Sinfonietta, Asko Ensemble, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and in venues and festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, NDR Hamburg, Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Royal Albert Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Schleswig Holstein Festival, Palace of Arts Budapest, and the Cheltenham Music Festival. Her performance with Amadinda was released as part of Teldec’s Ligeti Series.
For William Christie she has sung Il ritorno d’Ulisse Patria at the Opera Comique Paris, Wiener Festwochen, Opera de Lausanne, Opera de Bordeaux, Barbican Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music and at the Festival d’Aix en Provence, and a double bill of Les arts florissants and La Descente d’Orfée aux enfers with Les Arts Florissants throughout Europe.
Other engagements include Ligeti’s Aventures, Nouvelle aventures at the Lincoln Center New York, Berio Folksongs at the City of London Festival and on tour with the London Sinfonietta, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the Barbican Centre, Reich’s Tehillim with RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Les noces at the Kultur-Ruhr Festival Germany, and concerts with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Schoenberg Ensemble, Musik Fabrik, and National Orchestra of Hungary. Károlyi gives regular concerts throughout Europe with Amadinda Percussion Group and Ictus Ensemble.
Katalin Károlyi has broadcast and recorded with Les Arts Florissants, the Groupe Vocal de France, Le Parlement de Musique and La Chapelle Royale.
Ildikó Vékony was born in 1963 and started to play the cimbalom at the age of seven. She graduated from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music where she was the student of Ferenc Gerencsér. The school of György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados as well as the composers of the New Musical Studio has had a strong impact on her musical thinking.
Vékony has given concerts throughout Europe, was invited to numerous festivals and played the cimbalom with several renowned orchestras (the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne). She has performed at Tonhalle in Zürich, in Berlin, and at the Philharmonie in Munich, among other venues. She has also been guest artist at the Orlando Festival, Wiener Festwochen, Musikfestspiele Saar, and the Salzburg Osterfestspiele.
She has worked with Claudio Abbado, Zoltán Peskó, Péter Eötvös. Her repertory spreads from the music of the 12th century and Bach to contemporary music. She has premiered several works and was honored with the Artisjus (the Society of the Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors’ Rights) award numerous times for her interpretation of contemporary Hungarian compositions. Vékony has also participated in several radio and CD recordings.