"Nowadays, it is not uncommon for an internationally known and recognized regional symphonic orchestra such as the Pannon Philharmonic, to present a concert featuring contemporary repertoire. Nevertheless, the event ahead of us can be said to be special and unique in many ways: the Pannon Philharmonic will start its resident orchestra role in the newly built Osijek Concert Hall with the presentation of newly written symphonic works by contemporary Hungarian and Croatian composers, most of them written especially for this festive occasion. The rank of the event is enhanced by the fact that both Hungarian and Croatian composers will honor the event with their personal presence, during which the premiere of their musical works will take place. In the framework of the symposium, which will take place in parallel with the concert, not only will prominent representatives of the music art of the two neighboring countries will meet, but even before this, a close communication and workshop was established between the parties involved in the creation of the program, which, on the one hand, ensures the professional basis of the concert, and on the other hand, a strong regional cooperation and promotes common thinking, which is increasingly needed both humanly, professionally and culturally in these challenging time. I am confident that this project will be a good start to a long-term, fruitful relationship and joint work. The unique tone and colorful palette of the contemporary works can provide sufficient insight for those interested in the contemporary music of the region. We are preparing for this concert and the events related to the concert with anticipation and excitement, we look forward to welcoming all those who want to listen to us or get to know us better!"

András Vass permanent conductor

Croats and Hungarians have lived next door to each other for centuries. However, if we were to ask them about each other's composers, the respondents could come up with only few names. Anyone who visits this concert, however, will certainly remember some.

As much as we take it for granted that new hits are constantly being produced in popular music, we also feel it is evident that in classical music, the laurels can virtually only be given to long-dead composers. However, classical music works are still being written today, and there are certainly some that the public will also be happy to listen to in a hundred years. The concert of the Pannon Philharmonic on 7 November will feature recent works by Hungarian and Croatian composers. Be one of the first to hear these new works!

Péter Tóth was born in 1965 in Budapest. He followed his musical studies at the Bartók Béla Music Academy, studying in parallel percussion and composition with Oszkár Schwarcz and Miklós Kocsár. In 1985, he was admitted to the Liszt Ferenc University of Music, in the class of Emil Petrovics, where he graduated in 1990. In the 1990s, he wrote many accompanying music for productions in theaters in Budapest and other cities in Hungary and worked for several years as a teacher at the University of Theater and Film. He is currently the head of the Department of Music Theory at the Faculty of Music at the University of Szeged. Many of his choral works have won prizes in Hungarian and international competitions. He received the Erkel Award in 2007, the KÓTA Award in 2009, and the Bartók-Pásztory Ditta Award in 2013. Péter Tóth is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.

About the new Piano Concerto:

I wrote the Piano Concerto at the request of pianist József Balog. I recommend the work in memory of Zoltán Kocsis, for several reasons: one is that during the composition we talked a lot with József Balog about Kocsis, whom we both consider to be one of the greatest Hungarian pianists and musicians. On the other hand, the piece refers at several points to Bartók's piano concertos, which Kocsis played so fantastically. The piece has three-movements and a traditional musical form.

Máté Balogh, Composer,, Associate Professor at the Liszt Academy, Budapest

Máté Balogh is a Hungarian composer and associate professor at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest and guest lecturer in the Conservatorio di Trieste. His pieces have been performed and awarded all over Europe and in Turkey, Azerbaijan, China, Taiwan, Japan, Canada and the United States.

His music has been presented in many international festivals, such as Manifeste Festival (IRCAM-Paris), Milano Musica, MicroFest Prague, Open Recorder Days Amsterdam, ECCO Concert Series (Bruxelles), Ljubljana New Music Forum, Music Gardens Festival (Warsaw), Opus Amadeus (Istanbul), Kurtág&Ungarn (Bern), Listening to China (Shanghai), Secret Kiss (Tokio), Ostrava Days, Axes Kraków, Festival Academy (Budapest), Café Budapest, St. Gellert Festival (Szeged), Bartók Szeminárium (Szombathely), etc.

His pieces are published by Editio Musica Budapest, Impronta Edition (Mannheim), Universal Edition (Vienna) and Pizzicato Verlag Helvetia.

PRIZES (collection)

2024: Friedrich Schiller Composer Competition, Trieste, Italy – 1st Prize

2023: MicroFest Prague, 1st Prize

2021: Gilgamesh International Composer Competition, Los Angeles – 5th Place

2021: II. Impronta Composer Competition – 3rd Prize with his piece Der Rhein am Tomasse

2019: Fidelio 50 Prize

2019, September: World Premiere of his piece Alabama March on the bicentennial of State Alabama, Huntsville, USA.

2019, March: World Premiere of his piece One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, in Tokyo, Japan.

2018, May: 2nd Prize at the 1st Beethoven Composer Competition

2017, December: His piece for Chinese national orchestra, called Odes (诗经) were first performed in Shanghai, commissioned by the Cultural Ministry of People’s Republic of China.

2013, July: Won the possibility to be part as composer of the ’Out at S.E.A.’ chamber-opera project managed by the Péter Eötvös Foundation.

Máté Balogh: Sinfonia Nr. 3 – In memoriam László Bertók

Balogh’s 3rd symphony can be regarded as an acoustical illustration of four textual phrases written by the Pécs-based Hungarian poet László Bertók. For these poems the young poet was imprisoned in the Stalinist-type repressive system of the 1950s. The musical texture evokes, on the one hand, the transparent Haydn-like fabric, and on the other hand, the industrial aesthetic of ‘imperial walkers’ associated with oppressive regimes. These two seemingly opposing reflex systems are synthesized in a four-movement grotesque dramaturgy. The piece is dedicated to the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra and published by the UMP Editio Musica Budapest.

The movements and the associated poems are the following:

CURSE

We rally: tens, hundreds, thousands,

who were slammed like wind slams a gate,

who are surrounded by mist, sorrow, determination,

and we don’t know where our lives are headed.

STILL LIFE

We sit in the night lamplight,

weighing up what remains:

a swept out attic, an unvoiced thought

in my father’s eyes.

WARNING

You man-eaters, savage profiteers,

this cursed land is your doing,

you beware: the people call out

and the land devours those who hurt her.

BEFORE BEDTIME

I believe my grandson will stand

on a martian mountaintop one day,

looking at his fathers and the earth,

and smile with tears of joy.

(The poems are translated by Balázs Mohácsi)

Ante Knešaurek

Organist, composer, and educator Ante Knešaurek (Zagreb, 1978) graduated in organ under Marija Penzar and in composition under Marko Ruždjak at the Academy of Music in Zagreb. After earning his master’s degree in organ in Zagreb, he pursued postgraduate studies in organ performance and improvisation in Detmold and Graz. He is actively engaged in organ improvisation, continuing the tradition of Croatian composers, organists, and improvisers such as Franjo Dugan and Anđelko Klobučar. Since 1997, he has served as the principal organist at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Zagreb and is a full professor at the Department of Composition and Music Theory at the University of Zagreb’s Academy of Music. As a composer and organist, he has been featured on both the Croatian and international music scenes, with his works performed in Zagreb, Osor, Grožnjan, Osijek, Ljubljana, Pula, Vienna, Paris, Jerusalem, Moscow, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, Freyung, Detmold, Trieste, Udine, and beyond. He is the author of the university textbook Harmony and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Milka Trnina Award from the Croatian Association of Music Artists, the Boris Papandopulo Award from the Croatian Composers' Society, and an award from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

“Sonare 2 conceptually follows my previous composition for solo guitar, Sonare 1, in the sense that they share the same syntax. Both pieces assume the form of a vast, multidimensional musical arc within the context of an expansive improvisation. I explore and discover the elasticity of this created space with great curiosity, using carefully planned compositional techniques and occasionally spontaneous gestures of improvisation. I test the limits of the imagined sound membrane, which, as a guardian, holds my musical space together. Since 2013, when I wrote Consolation – In Memoriam Marko Ruždjak, I began developing a cycle where each new piece partially relies on or at least references a previous work. While some compositions delve into feelings of loneliness or moments of joy, this piece reflects the omnipresent sense of uncertainty and helplessness we face today. Have we placed ourselves in this position through our silence and lack of reaction due to fear? If so, this composition is a drawing that could aptly bear the subtitle On Human Woe.” (Ante Knešaurek)

Mladen Tarbuk

Discussing the artistic journey of Mladen Tarbuk (Sarajevo, 1962) requires consideration from multiple creative perspectives. Over the past 35 years, alongside numerous appearances across Europe, Canada, the United States, and Mexico, he has frequently conducted prestigious ensembles such as the Hungarian State Opera, Opera on the Rhine, and Sinfonietta Cracovia. His works have been performed at renowned festivals like George Enescu, Wien Modern, Bregenz Festival, and World Music Days. A significant part of his creative energy has been devoted to young musicians as a professor of composition, conducting, orchestration, and music theory at the Zagreb Academy of Music, as well as a visiting professor at the Bern University of the Arts. Mladen Tarbuk has received numerous international and domestic awards, including the Josip Štolcer Slavenski Award, which he has won five times. He is the author of approximately one hundred works, including notable pieces such as the ballet A Streetcar Named Desire, the orchestral pieces Sinfonia and Old Croatian Music, as well as chamber works and cycles for soprano and chamber ensemble. His contributions include preparing and publishing seminal works from Croatia’s symphonic and operatic heritage, such as the operas Love and Malice (Ljubav i zloba) by Vatroslav Lisinski and Nikola Šubić Zrinjski by Ivan pl. Zajc, Symphony in F-sharp Minor, Op. 41 by Dora Pejačević, and Sunny Fields (Sunčana polja) and Ghosts (Sablasti) by Blagoje Bersa. Tarbuk's significant impact on Croatian music includes major opera productions by the University of Zagreb’s arts academies, a long-term collaboration with the HRT Symphony Orchestra, and the founding of the Croatian Army’s Wind Symphony Orchestra. From 2002 to 2005, he served as the general director of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, led the music program of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival from 2013 to 2014, served as the festival’s general director from 2014 to 2017, and was the president of the Croatian Composers’ Society from 2020 to 2024. (Martina Bratić)

On His New Composition, Techno Symphony, Mladen Tarbuk Writes:

“The digital processing of recorded sound waves has unlocked extraordinary possibilities for manipulating tone color and rhythm. Consequently, experimental electronic music emerged, followed by DJs and techno as a musical style. What is this about? Thanks to the power of computers, it has become possible to merge, split, and modify pre-recorded musical material in real time, all within the basic four-four rhythmic pattern. Thus, digital music has enriched compositional techniques by altering the tonal spectrum, adjusting tempo, layering multiple musical levels at different tempos, adding ‘drops,’ all within varying rhythmic patterns. Therefore, this composition combines techno’s compositional methods with contemporary music’s techniques, creating three highly contrasting moods. The first movement, as the name suggests, aligns most closely with this description. The chromatic scale is divided into two diatonic hexachords, an upper and a lower. Through six formal sections, they exchange a pair of different notes each time, gradually ‘contaminating’ their original diatonic structure. Once all notes are exchanged, the upper hexachord becomes the lower and vice versa. The process then unfolds through six new exchanges in the opposite direction, returning to the beginning. The second movement transports the listener to a summer evening on a seashore, where the sounds of a techno party drift in on the wind. The listener is alone, lost in thought, conveyed to us by a grand cello solo. The third movement takes us to a techno-modified Balkan tavern, where the length of the usual four-four pattern changes unpredictably, and the sound of a traditional drum is replaced by the techno hi-hat sound.”

Please find HERE the official webpage of the Festival.