The programmes for the Liszt Year are being held through the joint efforts of Hungarian cultural institutions and with the co-operation of many foreign organisations. Hungary’s ambassador for the Liszt Year will be Zoltán Kocsis.
Franz Liszt was an impressively colourful figure in 19th century Europe, a musician who lived life to the full.

Through the programmes organised in the bicentenary year we can get to know his Hungarian identity and his European outlook, his artistic dedication and his elegance as a citizen of the world, his widely acclaimed virtuosity and his deeply personal religious sentiments. Liszt was an enlightened, cultured citizen of Europe, at ease almost everywhere in the world.

He was not only a composer but also a music teacher who practically launched the operation of the Academy of Music in his own home in Pest. Later, as he turned towards Catholicism, setting himself the goal of a new reform of church music, he enriched the genre of religious music with grand oratorios and masses, then in 1865 he took minor orders to become an abbé.

The programmes for the 2011 anniversary year wish to show the many sides of Franz Liszt, the man and artist so that an awareness of this complexity will bring us closer both to the composer whose bicentenary we are celebrating and to the social, material and intellectual environment in which he lived and worked. Work has been under way for years around the world in preparation for the celebrations.

The events in Hungary are being coordinated by the Hungarofest Nonprofit Kft. KLASSZ Zenei Iroda, and it is also assisted in its work by the International Liszt Society set up at Hungarian initiative and currently in the process of registration. The Society’s purpose is to act as an umbrella organisation grouping the Hungarian and foreign institutions, experts and festivals that have set themselves the goal of making Liszt’s work as widely known as possible and of continuing the Liszt tradition.
As part of the joint international efforts, Hungary will be represented abroad by a number of orchestras and artists. In January next year the Budapest Festival Orchestra will give a concert in London, and a Liszt Week will also be held there in memory of the master. The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra will tour to Madrid and the Baltics, while the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra is to give a concert in Vienna.

The National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir will appear in March in Brussels, where Dezső Ránki and Gábor Csalog are also to give solo piano recitals. Franz Liszt died in 1886 and was buried in Bayreuth, and in July one of the highlights of the series of concerts planned in this German town will be the performance of Liszt’s only opera, Don Sanche following the première on June 11 at the Miskolc International Opera Festival; performances in both venues will be a German-Hungarian-Austrian-Slovak coproduction.

One of the outstanding events of the Liszt Year will undoubtedly be World Liszt Day, an initiative of the Hungarofest KLASSZ Zenei Iroda and the Hungarian Music Council when, exactly a year from now, on , October 22, 2011, the anniversary of the composer’s birthday, Liszt’s grand oratorio Christus will be performed in concert halls around the world, from Paris to Seoul.

Among the programmes in Hungary for the Liszt Year it is important to mention the Liszt Marathon to be held in May in the Millenáris, where besides classical music, young and old can also enjoy crossover concerts.

Artistic director Dénes Várjon has very carefully compiled the programme for next autumn’s Liszt and Europe international chamber music festival with the participation of world famous Hungarian and foreign artists. On this occasion – as a real curiosity – Nike Wagner, a descendant of Liszt and Wagner who only rarely undertakes public appearances, will give a talk.

As part of the Liszt Year the National Anniversaries Secretariat of the Balassi Institute is announcing a competition for cultural grants. The competition will focus on the person and work of Franz Liszt by supporting creations and productions that use the means of art to present or popularise the connection between contemporary art and music.

The Liszt Year will be an excellent opportunity to make Hungary and Hungarian culture seen and heard not only in Hungary but in Europe and throughout the world, through the music of Franz Liszt, the virtuoso who embraced his Hungarian identity, and with outstandingly talented Hungarian artists. The programmes planned for the Liszt Year clearly show that for centuries Hungary has deservedly been in the forefront of classical music.

Co-operating partners for the Liszt Year:
Balassi Institute
Budapest Festival Center Nonprofit Kft.
Budapest Music Center
Filharmónia Budapest és Felső-Dunántúl Koncert és Fesztiválszervező Nonprofit Kft.
Franz Liszt University of Music
Franz Liszt Memorial Museum and Research Centre
Franz Liszt Society
Millenáris Nonprofit Kft.
Miskolc International Opera Festival
Palace of Arts"

Further information from Dorka Tamás by clicking here