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| Márta Sebestyén |
Though Sebestyén, who is a winner of the Kossuth Prize and the Liszt Prize, Hungary's top awards for musicians, has sung on about a hundred albums, I Saw the Gates of Heaven Open is the first which is entirely her own vision. It mixes sacred and secular music from the court of the house of Árpád to that of the Cistercian monasteries in the hills of Catalonia.
Sebestyén is joined on the album by Balázs Dongó Szokolay on bagpipe, flutes and saxophone, as well as Mátyás Bolya on lute and zither.
Bolya says, though the album is based on ancient music, it has relevance today.
"We think it important that folklore is ongoing, and those who participate in it take the values of the past further. It is a type of community, not a whim of passing fashion. We use this heritage as a free artistic base material. And we are convinced that ancient musicians too collected from their musical heritage."
Source: Fidelio / Photo: Eszter Gordon
