This year's festival will include a performance of a symphony by Ignaz Pleyel, who travelled to Eszterháza to learn from Haydn, played by Belgium's Il Fondamento. The Esterházy Trio will sing several of Haydn's pieces for baritone trio, as well as a piece by Haydn's friend Luigi Tomasini. The pianist Zvi Meniker, a student of Malcom Bilson, will perform two solo concerts during the festival, performing on both the piano and the harpsichord. An evening of chamber music performed by Mária Zádori and Katalin Monlós will offer an exciting selection of sonatas, songs and cantatas by Haydn and his German and British contemporaries. The Sonatores Pannoniae programme will focus on Haydn's rarely heard horn divertimentos and marches, including the Hungarian National March. A Haydn opera will also be on festival lineup: L'isabola disabitata conducted by György Vashegyi.
The Haydn at Eszterháza Festival is the brainchild of Kálmán Strém. It is organised by the Hungarian Haydn Society, who have appointed a committee to decide on a programme each year. The committee is headed by the music historian László Somfai, head of department at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy Katalin Komlós, and Cornell University professor Malcolm Bilson.
