Kurtag at 99: Hungarian Public Media Person of Year Celebrated on His Birthday With Concert

  • 31 Jan 2025 8:12 AM
Kurtag at 99: Hungarian Public Media Person of Year Celebrated on His Birthday With Concert
Kossuth laureate composer, pianist and teacher Gyorgy Kurtag, who is Public Media Person of the Year in 2024, will celebrate his 99th birthday on Feb 19 with a concert held at the Budapest Music Centre (BMC).

The concert will feature new compositions, improvisations and pieces written by the composer for the birthdays of other famous artists, as well as an award ceremony, MTVA's press and marketing office said.

Hungarian musicians working on the border between jazz and contemporary music, as well as classical pianists, will pay tribute to Kurtag in the evening concert, with the Modern Art Orchestra, Kornel Fekete Kovacs, also performing alongside the composer's son, Gyorgy Kurtag Jr, and cimbalom player Miklos Lukacs, pianists Gábor Csalog and Andras Kemenes, and trombonist Laszlo Goz, who will host the evening. Goz has compared Kurtag to Bela Bartok in stature.

Kurtag's three pieces for jazz orchestra will also be performed, and the concert and award ceremony will be broadcast on classical public media channel Bartok Radio and on the M5 culture channel.

Tickets available here

More:
Budapest Music Center

About the artist:

György Kurtág was born on 19 February 1926, in Lugoj in the Banat region of Eastern Europe, a region assigned to Romania by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. In 1940 he starts taking lessons in piano from Magda Kardos and in composition from Max Eisikovits at Temesvár (Timisoara, Romania). In 1946 he moves to Budapest and enrols in the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. There he studies composition with Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas, piano with Pál Kadosa and chamber music with Leó Weiner.

In 1951 he graduates in piano and chamber music and in 1955 in composition. In 1954 Kurtág is awarded with the Erkel Prize by the Hungarian State (also in 1956 and 1969). Between 1957 and 1958 he studies with Marianne Stein in Paris and attends courses of Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. From 1960 till 1968 he works as répétiteur of soloists with the Hungarian National Philharmonia.

In 1967 he becomes professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, first of piano and then of chamber music. In 1971 he stays one year in West-Berlin as grantee of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). In 1973 he is awarded the Kossuth Prize by the Hungarian state, in 1984 the Béla Bartók-Ditta Pásztory Prize, and in 1985 the title Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French state.

Kurtág's international reputation began to take hold with Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova for soprano and chamber ensemble, which had its premiere in Paris in 1981.In 1986 Kurtág retires from the Academy of Music, however he continues to teach a limited number of classes until 1993.

In 1987 he becomes member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich and member of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. In 1993 he is rewarded with the Prix de Composition Musicale by the Fondation Prince Pierre the Monaco for his "Grabstein für Stephan" and "Op. 27 No. 2(Double Concerto)".

In the same year he is awarded the Herder Prize by the Freiherr-vom-Stein Stiftung, Hamburg and the Premio Feltrinelli by the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome. Also in 1993 he is invited to stay at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin for two years as composer in residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

In 1994 he receives two other prizes: the Austrian State Award for European Composers and the Denis de Rougemot Prize, bestowed on him by the European Association of Festivals. In 1995 he stays in Vienna for a year, composes and teaches master classes at the Wiener Konzerthaus.

In 1996 the Hungarian state awards him with Kossuth Prize for his life achievements. He is invited in the same year by the Sociéte Gaviniés, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague, the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg Utrecht, the Concertgebouw NV Amsterdam, the Nederlandse Opera, the Schönberg Ensemble, the Asko ensemble, the Orlando Quartet, the Osiris Trio and Reinbert de Leeuw to stay in the Netherlands for two years.

In 1998 he receives the "Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen" by the Austrian Republic, the Music Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Stiftung, and the European Prize for Composition by the "Fördergemeinschaft der Europäischen Wirtschaft" and the "Fondation des Prix Européens".

For the second time between 1998-1999 he is invited by the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. In 1999 he is also invited by the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Conservatoire of Paris, the Cité de la Musique, and the Festival d'Automne á Paris to stay in the French capital for two years. In the same year he receives the Order of Merit in Sciences and Arts, Berlin. In 2000 he wins the John Cage prize in New York.

2001 brings him the Foreign Honorary membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Hölderlin Prize by the City and the University of Tübingen, Germany. In 2002 the Kurtág couple settles in France, near to Bordeaux.

In February 2006, the 80-years old György Kurtág was celebrated on a five-day birthday festival (Kurtág 80) organized by the Budapest Music Center. The Hungarian State has awarded the Hungarian Republic Order of the Big Cross (civil section) to the composer.

He received the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition at Louisville University on April 20, 2006. In June 2010 György Kurtág was awarded with the Zurich Festival Prize, in February 2015 he has won the BBVA Foundation "Frontiers of Knowledge" Award in the Contemporary Music category.

Source: 
MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881.

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