Müpa Budapest chose Kossuth Prize- and Liszt Award-winner Béla Lakatos Szakcsi as its Artist of the Season 2017/18 for his status as the leading performer on the Hungarian jazz scene, and as one who is also peerless as a pianist and a composer, a savvy interpreter of a vast range of musical styles and as an improv player.
As a child, he dreamed of becoming a famous composer and a noted performer of classical music, but during his years at the conservatory, he was seduced by jazz. Following the example of his role model, Leonard Bernstein, however, he has always endeavoured in the course of his career to feel comfortable in every musical genre, which meant that he never completely moved away from classical music. In 2002, he performed Mozart's "Coronation” Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major with the Hungarian ...National Philharmonic, playing his own jazz improvisations in the cadenzas. He is also fond of making forays into pop and folk music.
For this concert, he's putting together a programme spanning the most diverse imaginable range of genres, with improvisation taking on an important role in both parts. He'll start off by playing Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto for Two Pianos in C minor together with his son Róbert Szakcsi Lakatos, who shares his father's versatility as a musician. Next, the Kelemen Quartet will perform Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 2, with Szakcsi joining in with his improvisations between the movements. The second half will bring to the stage Szakcsi Lakatos's guest Gábor Presser, who will join the pianist for some joint improvisation before they perform some of Presser's songs together, these embellished further with the vocals of Mariann Falusi.
Presented by: Müpa Budapest
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
Refreshments – Without the Queue
Thanks to our new catering service at the Átrium Snack Bar, you can forget about waiting in line during intermissions for some refreshments and get your order prepped especially for you by the time the intermission actually starts. Find out more about pre-ordering here.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.