The festival usually starts with a "zero day", a day before the start of the official programme, but this year the event will begin with a lineup of 150-200 musicians who will perform the best Hungarian songs of the past fifty years between 16:00 and 23:00 on August 11.
The Day of Hungarian Song is the brainchild of Gábor Presser, whose contribution to Hungarian song during the period is perhaps unmatched. Presser says the event is a reaction to a culture of song -- ranging from folk songs to cabaret to the film songs of the 30s and to the music of the last five decades - that could soon disappear.
The Day of Hungarian Song will start with performances by bands from the 60s and work its way to the present. "We have to show, together, something of the remaining treasury of Hungarian song, as well as how we value each other's work," says Presser. He adds that the programme is just a warm-up act for the future, when the Day of Hungarian Song could involve performances of old and new Hungarian music at venues around the country.
Károly Gerendai, who organises the Sziget Festival, says it is a sad tendency that fewer and fewer Hungarian language songs are reaching the public. "I wouldn't like it if my children were unable to hear Hungarian songs," he says.
Gerendai says tickets for the event will cost a token HUF 2,500 apiece and that any profit will go to charity.
Béla Szilárd Jávorszky, the journalist and author of the two-volume History of Hungarian Rock, sees the programme on August 11 as the start of a new tradition.
Photo: Péter Kollányi (MTI)
