A Celebration of Folk Music - from dance house to world music

The performance will be broadcasted on our website and YouTube channel.


This is the 14th year we are holding a grand gala programme to celebrate Hungarian folk music in all of its richness and openness. It also includes other attractive features we could mention, but these two are sufficient to serve as an organising principle... and the justification for the fact that we co...nsider both traditional and arranged folk music to be equally essential, not to speak of the original pieces inspired by them. This is true if for no other reason than the fact that they are linked together through the professional humility and exemplary standards that are equally present in the great elders of the genre and their younger followers.
The entire ocean in a single drop of water - this is how we could describe the Fonó Band, the programme's opening act, for whom a crystal-clear understanding of the folk music tradition is just as characteristic as the need to find new paths forward. Sometimes they expand their boundaries in chronological terms - for example, by looking to Baroque music; sometimes they do it in a geographical sense, like exploring our connections to Turkish folk music. But no matter how we look at it, one thing is sure: this band led by Gergely Agócs will always captivate their audience.
The Berka Ensemble are also well familiar with the music of times past, although their orientation is primarily toward the tradition of the Csángó people of Moldavia. Their new record, Csángó négy évszak ('Four Csángó Seasons'), has received a serious response, making it nearly certain that they will be giving a taste of the elevated and sacred songs of this tradition.
A celebration within the celebration: to mark their 20 years playing together, Romano Drom has come out with a brilliant album - titled Give Me Wine - for their fans. It fuses together the classics of Olah Gypsy music, Antal Kovács's own compositions and Western European Gypsy melodies without losing an ounce of the unfathomable grief and joy that they contain.
The second half of the evening consists of two productions in which folk music is presented with rock overtones. One of the godfathers of the genre, Ferenc Kiss is a veteran of the groups Kolinda, Vízöntő and Etnofon. The songwriters themselves and Etnofon have blended their ever popular classics with the rearranged songs of Péter Novák in a way that transcends the boundaries of genre. As the 'final climax' of the gala programme, we will get to hear the Csík Band, joined by Gábor Presser and János Karácsony, as they bring the Müpa Budapest audience to their feet with songs from Locomotiv GT.