State Secretary for Culture Géza Szőts told a press conference that Végh had never received the attention he deserved in his lifetime, neither in Hungary nor abroad, but the debt would be settled now with a series of commemorations. The State Secretariat for Culture is providing seed capital of 50 million forints for the series, but expects donations to cover the full cost, he added.
The series includes the establishment of a chamber music centre, the launch of an international chamber music contest and many, many concerts.
The Sándor Végh Chamber Music Centre will be set up in Budapest?s Páva Street Music House, currently the practice space for the Concerto Budapest.
The first Sándor Végh International String Quartet Competition will be held in Budapest on June 4-11, 2012. Competitors will play Végh?s favourite pieces as well as a piece commissioned from the composer Péter Tornyai, who was the winner of the chamber section of the 2011 New Hungarian Musical Forum (UMFZ). The jury for the contest will include Valentin Erben and Gerhard Schulz from the Alban Berg Quartet, Arvid Engegaard from the Engegaard String Quartet, Stephan Gerner from the Carmina Quartet and Johanners Meissl from the Artis Quartet. Details of the contest can be seen at www.veghsandor.com
The Hungarian State Opera will mark the centenary with a series of concerts, and Budapest?s Palace of Arts will celebrate the violinist?s hundredth birthday, on May 12, 2012, with a Végh Day. One of the concerts on the Palace of Arts programme is by the Camerata Salzburg, which Végh founded, conducted by András Keller, a former student of Végh.
A relief will be installed on the wall of the Casa Universitarilor in Cluj, the city in Transylvania where Végh ? as well as State Secretary Szőts ? was born.
Further plans include master courses in the recently renovated Károlyi Palace in Fehérvárcsurgó.
The Liszt Academy of Music will co-organise the series of events. Végh?s daughter Alja Végh-Batthyány, head of the Cadenza Concert international management office in Salzburg, will also be involved in the preparations.
Végh-Batthyány said that her father, who died in 1997, would have been very happy had he lived to see the chamber music centre will established to foster the careers of young musicians. He would have happily given his name to help Hungary?s world-famous string quartet traditions survive, she added.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: MTI
