During the festival Budapest's Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music will host a grand concert on February 19 featuring Concerto Budapest conducted by Andras Keller, the Saint Ephraim Male Choir, pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich, cellist Louise Hopkins and Gyorgy Kurtag Jr on electronics and keyboards.
The programme will include the Hungarian premiere of a Kurtag composition dedicated to Pierre Boulez and a joint composition by Kurtag, his son and Olivier Cuendet performed as a dialogue between a synthesiser and an orchestra. During the evening, a video message from the Berlin Philharmonic will be broadcast, featuring conductor Simon Rattle and trumpet soloist Gabor Tarkovi on behalf of the musicians.
The festival programme also includes a piano concert by Zoltan Kocsis playing works from a manuscript that Kurtag prepared for him over a period of 32 years and the screening of a documentary entitled Kurtag Home Video by director Judit Kurtag, the composer's granddaughter.
