This year, from July 14 to 21, the festival awaited audiences at several venues across Budapest. During the festival, the House of Music Hungary and the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy filled up three times, three magnificent church concerts took place, more than 1,500 people attended the Holocaust memorial concert in the Dohány Street Synagogue, and a full-house concert commemorated Péter Eötvös at the BMC-Budapest Music Center.
At the invitation of artistic directors Katalin Kokas and Barnabás Kelemen violinists, over 60 world-renowned soloists performed unique productions created exclusively for this festival, which could not be seen together on any other stage. During the day, the artists passed on their knowledge to the next generation of musicians in the FAB masterclasses, with around 100 university students attending from over 25 universities worldwide.
During the nine-day summer festival, world-renowned artists such as Shlomo Mintz and Vilde Frang commemorated the Holocaust victims on the 80th anniversary of the Hungarian Holocaust with a special concert in the beautiful Art Nuovo building of the Dohany Street Synagogue. At the Budapest Music Center, a contemporary music day was held in memory of Péter Eötvös, where György Kurtág conducted a public masterclass for the Kelemen Quartet, and numerous artists performed in the evening to honor the legendary composer who passed away in March. According to the performing artists, this evening also demonstrated that Péter Eötvös's musical legacy is a living and defining, guiding body of work in today's contemporary music culture.
This year's special guest was world-renowned Italian writer Alessandro Baricco, who came to Hungary for the first time at the invitation of the two artistic directors, together with his pianist wife, Gloria Campaner. A conversation and book signing with the writer, in collaboration with PesText, was held in the Solti Hall of the Liszt Academy of Music, and he also appeared on stage for a brief conversation during the evening concert in the Grand Hall on July 20.
This year, the programs were organized around the motto "Reflections," adding further intellectual layers to the musical experiences with meanings such as "mirror image" and "awareness." This was also true for the church concerts held at the Church of St. Teresa of Ávila, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, and the Reformed Church in Fasor, where works by Bach, Vivaldi, Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Shostakovich were performed. Among other beloved masterpieces, we heard Bach's Brandenburg Concerto alongside rarely performed musical delicacies like Strauss's Metamorphoses.
The organizers also thought of families, offering numerous events during the day alongside the evening concerts. On July 20, Vivaldi's Four Seasons was performed by the FAB artists with Katalin
Kokas's solo in a particularly special format: during the movements, Hanna Kelemen read out the composer's annotations and poems, and the best entries from the more than 400 submissions to the FAB's drawing competition were displayed on a screen in the background.
The festival also hosted the Cluj-Napoca Hungarian Theatre Company, which closed its season in Budapest with two public and one professional performance of the production Ifjú barbárok (Young Barbarians), showcasing the friendship between Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, with English subtitles for the partially foreign audience at the House of Music Hungary.
The festival program was preceded by the 5th Ilona Fehér International Violin Competition, the final of which was broadcast live by the Violin Channel. The winners and participants of the competition performed Schubert's 9th Symphony under the baton of Andreas Ottensamer in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy of Music. Many of the competition participants stayed in Budapest for the FAB masterclasses and the festival programme as well.
Several times, the participants of the FAB masterclasses also took the stage, such as at the closing concert where the audience heard them perform Bach's Piano Quartet Concerto in A minor, with solos by pianists Alexander Lonquich, Maria Meerovich, Gloria Campaner, and Gábor Csalog. At this concert, Minister of Culture and Innovation Dr. Balázs Hankó greeted the audience. The closing concert of the festival was broadcast live by Bartók Radio – the classical music channel - , and the festival program concluded with a trio performance by Barnabás Kelemen, Nicolas Altstaedt, and Alexander Lonquich, delivering an energetic rendition of Brahms' Piano Trio in B major.
The Festival Academy Budapest's annual program series is realized with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation. At the closing event, Barnabás Kelemen thanked not only the sponsors but also the venues and the festival's participating students and artists.
"We have had an incredible three weeks. At the Festival Academy Budapest, every year the knowledge and energy of the world's musical elite come together. We are happy that every artist was here with us wholeheartedly, came to Budapest, shared their best knowledge with the next generation of musicians during the day, and together these artists brought to life wonderful concerts on stage. We can say that we maintain a friendly relationship with every participant and meet and perform together in many parts of the world, but the FAB is a celebration for us because it is where the world meets! That is why so many competitors and masterclass participants come to us from the best universities, and we hope that this is why the audience is so loyal and dedicated and we consistently had full houses. We also consider it important that the artists and students get to know Hungary, Hungarian musical culture, and take home lifelong experiences from here." (Katalin Kokas and Barnabás Kelemen founders and artistic directors of Festival Academy Budapest)
The Festival Academy Budapest awaits the audience next year as well, with the 10th jubilee FAB Summerfest to be held from July 25 to August 3, 2025.
For more information about the annual program of the Festival Academy Budapest and further events: https://fesztivalakademia.hu/
