Index – Culture – Would you like to write music for Gergely Karácsony?
The Budapest Festival Orchestra, with the support of the Metropolitan Municipality, announces a competition for composers on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the unification of Pest, Buda and Óbuda. The winning entry will be presented by the Budapest Festival Orchestra under the direction of Iván Fischer at a large-scale outdoor concert as part of the Budapest 150 program series.
Bridges are important in the life of Budapest because you have to get across the Danube somehow. When they connected Óbuda, Buda and Pest into one big city, the bridges became significantly stronger. Music is the best bridge, because it connects not only cities, but also people. There is no language barrier and people of the most different mindsets love the same music. Already in 1923, on Budapest’s 50th birthday, they realized how important music was. Ernő Dohnányi, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály were asked to compose a jubilee work. We also want to continue this tradition now, one hundred years later, on Budapest’s 150th birthday, so we have put out a competition for composers to write a new, festive work, which the Budapest Festival Orchestra will present at a jubilee concert in Hősök Square.
– says Iván Fischer, the music director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, in their statement sent to us about the background of the composer’s competition.
The tender is open, limited and one-round. The organizers are waiting for the entries until April 30, 2023. The primary goal is for the submitted musical pieces to evoke in a dignified manner the past and present of 150 years of Budapest, the unification of the three cities and the complex cultural-historical-urbanistic identity of the capital.
The organizers are looking for classical works written for large orchestra,
festive overture, which can be a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 10 minutes. The professional jury will judge the incoming entries until May 30, 2023. The jury will also award the first three winners with cash prizes in the amount of one, one and a half and two million forints. Any person from the country, across the border or abroad can participate in the competition, regardless of their nationality, place of residence, age or education.