It was the fortune of the Armenian-born millionaire, Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), the biggest patron of Portuguese art that formed the basis of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. The Foundation operates a permanent museum, supports and finances charitable institutions, educational programmes and various art projects. The symphony orchestra founded in 1962 has become the leading ensemble in the Portuguese music world and, following the example of the Portuguese navigators and explorers of the past, has travelled to almost forty continents on four continents. The ensemble is coming to Budapest under the direction of its music director, the outstanding American conductor Lawrence Foster.

The music of Richard Strauss is a real test for orchestra, composer and soloist. The audience perceives nothing of this, provided that the performance is in the hands of a conductor like Iván Fischer, the orchestra plays like the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the soloists sing like the guest artists for this evening. Ariadne believed every word Theseus said, and look what happened! So don’t believe us but go to the concert and hear for yourself.

The Canadian St. Lawrence Quartet burst onto the international music scene in the late 1990s. Critics unanimously agree that the quartet brings impressive confidence, naturalness and intelligence to the most complex quartets in the literature, from Haydn, through Schumann to Bartók and contemporary compositions. They are preparing to scale the peaks of quartet music in their Budapest concert too.

Inner Voice is the continuation of last year’s Heavenly Voice. It is only through complete silence and inward contemplation that we can reach the depth of our innermost self. The forces slumbering in the depths of our selves are touched by the most archaic Hungarian prayers, songs and Gregorian chants, using the most natural stringed instrument, the human voice and the double bass.

“The sky is untied from the earth
–not by the dawn, as Attila József wrote in his famous poem, but by the magic of sound casting its spell on us. For a single moment of silence, a special time lasting a few breaths. For an entranced hour, … brought about only by sound and the creation, meeting, separation, spread and rise of sound: the human voice and the sound drawn (by the other person) from the instrument. The obedience of the double bass, the movement of the bow, at times barely perceptible at others heavily emphatic, provide the movement in this visually restrained production…..” Emese Egyed, Kolozsvár/Cluj

“God never hurries and is never late. He is always there. Precisely.
Belief, some kind of certainty that ticks away unnoticed in everybody’s life and which is shaped into a clattering, knocking imprint in our selves – in the confused chaos of our wills, desires and deeds. It ticks away there…
They set themselves an enormous undertaking: to explore the side of the world beyond the self. And something fundamentally more: to question it and gain a response, and tell us what they saw. To make the Earth, Waters, Fire and Air speak. To show that there is still a place in the world that remains intact. And lives in us. It slumbers in our vocal chords and the strings of our double bass. We only have to dare to hear it.” Sándor Semsei, Budapest

“Unbridled dancing with amazing expressive power”
Berliner Kurier***

“She possesses miraculous force”.
Der Kurier, Vienna

Eszter Radák is an outstanding young artist with individual character in contemporary Hungarian art. Her panel paintings are characterised by unusual viewpoints, emphasis on surprising details, changes of horizon and perspective. Motifs from the Hungarian rural socio-cultural environment appear in her canvases painted in lively colours, surrounded with firm contours.
She creates a distinctive mode of expression with the fine details of her painting technique, her works are objectively viewed elements of reality and are characterised by a special unity of the abstractions.