Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2010 (22. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)

2010-11-19 / 44. szám

Teenage Violinist from Hungary Blows the Roof off the California Theatre in San Jose

By the time Lajos Sárközi wound up his astonishing performance that Saturday at the California Theatre in San Jose, his face wore the gleeful look of the cat who ate the mouse. With the audience roaring its approval, this 19-year-old Hungarian violinist seemed almost amused, as if his ravishing execution of technically daunting works had all been a bit of a game, something he does at the drop of a hat.

This cocksure showman - who plays with a soulful brilliance beyond his years - was the soloist and star of “Gypsy Airs,” Symphony Silicon Valley’s weekend program. It was a night of pure pleasure, one of the orchestra’s best concerts since its founding in fall 2002. And Sárközi, who comes from a family of Budapest-based Roma musicians, had plenty of help, especially from Hungarian guest conductor Gregory Vajda, drawing clear, vigorous and radiant performances from the orchestra.

The program, which repeated Sunday, included famously difficult, Gypsy-fired works by Ravel and Sarasate. And there’s quite a story behind it.

Sárközi, who took up the violin at age 5, grew up performing traditional Roma music with his family in Budapest restaurants. Coming late to classical music, he’s in his first year of a five-year conservatory program in Budapest. He plays a decent student violin — nothing fancy — and won his bow in a Hungarian radio jazz competition.

Try Googling him; you will find next to nothing. No website. No MySpace page. Sárközi seems to have emerged out of thin air.

How?

About three years ago, Vajda’s agent happened to see the violinist perform in a Budapest restaurant. One thing led to another, and Vajda performed this same “Gypsy Airs” program with Sárközi two summers ago at the Music in the Mountains festival in Nevada City. A number of Symphony Silicon Valley’s musicians were in the festival orchestra, and they began lobbying Andrew Bales, Symphony Silicon Valley’s president, to bring Sárközi and the program to San Jose. c

“They told me, ‘Listen, the audience went crazy, they loved it, and you’ve got to hear this kid,’ ” Bales recalled. On October 16, Saturday night, Sárközi played Ravel’s “Tzigane” - the title derives from “Cigány,” Hungarian for “Gypsy” - with terrific authenticity. That means a huge woody and earthy sound, plowing through Ravel’s compendium of Gypsy fiddling tricks: swooping and sliding double-stops and octaves, glassy harmonics, trills, hesitations and accelerations, impossibly high positions on the lower strings. And all of this with a singing sensibility, heartened by a broad vibrato. And, yes, the audience went crazy.

The orchestra was caught up in the infectiousness of the performance, with harpist Dan Levitan performing with elegance as the secondary soloist. When the piece was over, Vajda bounded off the stage. All night, he did this, practically running to and from the podium. For him, as for Sárközi, the music on this program was like mother’s milk. The conductor’s face was glowing and his exuberance translated into precise and glowing performances.

The night had begun with “Symphonic Minutes” by Hungarian composer Erno Dohnanyi, a performance flush with pungent contributions from the wind section, especially English hornist Patricia Emerson Mitchell.

“Tzigane” came next, and then “Dances of Marosszek” by Zoltán Kodály, another Hungarian, famous for studying the peasant and Gypsy music of Central and Eastern Europe. This performance was darkly colored, with shadowy songs — quasi-Oriental, some of them, in their embellishments -- from the cellos, individual winds and principal horn Meredith Brown. At one point, the strings resonated like a single giant guitar.

After intermission, the audience was treated to “Hungarian Sketches” by Bela Bartók, yet another Hungarian, as well as Kodaly’s research partner among the folk. Principal clarinet Michael Corner was the standout here, though the middle “Melody” movement grew big and gleaming on a foundation of low brass.

The program kept gaining momentum. In fact, Vajda was so eager to begin Brahms’ “Hungarian Dances” that he ran back to the podium and launched the piece while five musicians - required here for Brahms’ expansive scoring - were still finding their seats. No matter. The first of the three dances, in particular, was combustive - though not as fiery as Sárközi, returning as soloist for “Zigeunerweisen” ("Gypsy Airs”), by the Spanish composer and violinist Pablo de Sarasate.

This was the tour de force. Sárközi wrested a weeping rhapsody from that student violin of his, hamming it up, trilling and sliding as before, and zipping through Sarasate’s bullet-train passages with light-and-springy rhythm and touch. It seemed so easy for him, almost as if he were toying with his listeners — including the musicians of the orchestra, many of whom broke into applause along with the rest of the crowd.

As an encore, Sárközi, alone, played Fritz Kreisler’s “Recitative and Scherzo-Caprice,” a work fit for Heifetz, which the 19 year-old again consumed like that mouse-eating cat.

Where is all this leading? As his studies continue, how will Sárközi grapple with Mozart, Beethoven and other repertory that’s not so closely related to his Roma heritage? One suspects he will do just fine. Soon to audition at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he perhaps is about to leap into the public eye.

Some lucky San Jose folks got a sneak preview.

Source: San Jose Mercury - By Richard Scheinin

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THANK YOU

Ferenc Santa. Jr. and Gypsy Band featuring Piroska Parsdy (vocaisi and Bea. Santa (piano).

Those attending this very lively, musical concert this past week are' looking forward to your return visit iii* Februárt' 2011.

Sincerely,

Hungarian Authority Suspends Budapest Transport Co. License

BUDAPEST - Hungary’s National Transport Authority has suspended the operating license of Budapest transport company BKV Zrt., state news agency MTI reported. The authority granted BKV a temporary operating license for six months to stabilize its finances, the Budapest Mayor’s office told MTI.

The transport company, owned by the municipality of Budapest, will receive state subsidies totaling 12.5 billion Hungarian forints ($63.6 million) in November to prevent the firm from bankruptcy.

In its 2010 budget BKV planned to receive HUF 17.4 billion from the state but the new government, after its landslide victory in April, put a halt to state payments to the transport firm.

In its business plan, BKV forecast a pre-tax loss of HUF 3.7 billion for 2010, its stock of debt rising to HUF81 billion. BKV showed a net loss of HUF 23.5 billion in 2009.

Danube strategy a symbol of Europe’s “reunification”

Sankt Polten, November 12 (MTI) - The EU’s Danube strategy is . a symbol of Europe’s reunification, it is an opportunity and a responsibility at the same time, Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi told a conference in Austria on Friday.

The Danube strategy is geared to strengthen good neighbourly relations and help peoples of the region “really grow closer”, Martonyi said at the event organized by the Austrian Bundesrat and the Lower Austrian parliament in Sankt Polten.

He said that the macroregional Danube strategy is likely to be approved under Hungary’s European Union Presidency in 2011.

Hungary’s govt announces EU presidency spokesmen appointments

(MTI) - The government on Friday announced the three spokesmen of Hungary EU presidency in the first half of 2011.

Piroska Bakos will be the presidency’s “face in Hungary” while Gergely Polner and Marton Hajdú will act as spokesmen abroad.

Government spokeswoman Anna Nagy told a news conference at the Foreign Ministry that Hungary would host 16 informal ministerial sessions, a summit meeting of the heads of state and government of the Eastern Partnership and an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) at foreign ministerial level.

Bakos is a one-time public television editor and anchorman.

Polner, trained as a lawyer, has been on the staff of the European Parliament since 2005. In 2010 he was appointed to PR officer of the EP’s London office.

Hajdú, who is an economist, has worked at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition.

Ferihegy International Airport re-obtains EU’s “clear” status

(MTI) - Budapest’s international Ferihegy airport on Friday reobtained its “clear” status after a security review by EU experts.

The airport had been found wanting in its security arrangements and lost its “clear” status at the end of July this year.

International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) established then that the airport operator had failed to eliminate the air security shortcomings pinpointed by the organisation in a previous audit.

Transit passengers from Budapest were treated at airports in the Schengen zone as if they had arrived from a non-EU country and were required to go through another security check.

The airport operator Budapest Airport had until December to correct the shortcomings identified by the audit and faced a court case at the European Court of Justice if it failed.

Anti-government rally to be held at Budapest sports arena on Nov 27

(MTI) - The opposition Socialist party has said it will hold a mass demonstration against the government on November 27 at Budapest’s László Papp sports arena.

The Socialists will give an assessment of the government’s work since it swept into power in the April elections at the rally, which they plan to do each year in the future, Zsolt Torok, the party’s spokesman told MTI on Friday.

Opponents of the government’s policies addressing the event will include politicians and members of civil organisations, Torok added.

Socialist party leader Attila Mesterhazy called the demonstration on October 28, in response to Fidesz pressing ahead with changing the constitution and curtailing the constitutional court’s powers.

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November 19,2010 ^