THReNSeMBle

Following last year’s guest appearance by the London Sinfonietta, this year’s Mini-Festival presents another chance for Hungarian audiences to encounter an ensemble that specialises in the performance of contemporary music to the highest international standard. The THReNSeMBle first appeared at the Bartók Festival where they played Pierre Boulez’s Dérive 1 as a reference piece and some compositions by young Hungarian and American composers connected to Boulez’s music. After this evening the Bart...ók Festival has asked Balázs Horváth to organize a concert for which pieces composed by young Hungarian composers should be selected. As the concert was very successful, the ensemble gathering at that time mostly students of the Liszt Academy of Music decided to continue playing together. Their goal became to perform either works of students studying composition or of those who recently graduated from the Academy, focusing also on maintaining continuous personal contact with the composers of the youngest generation. THReNSeMBle performed some very important contemporary works this season, such as Donatoni: Arpège, Berio: O King, Boulez: Dérive 1, etc. to broaden their repertoire. They gave complete concerts as the István Vántus Contemporary Music Days in Szeged, the French Institute in Budapest as part of the Alma Mater series of the Liszt Academy, at the Kodály Art Festival in Kecskemét and also a joint concert of Slovak and Hungarian composers at Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In April, 2011 THReNSeMBle particpated at the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (the only competiton for performing contemporary music) in Amsterdam. In June, 2011 THReNSeMBly musicians recorded compositionson DVD by Samu Gryllus. THReNSeMBle was requested to be the ensemble-in-residence of the Composition Seminar of the International Bartók Festival in Szombathely, 2010 where they not only practiced and performed pieces by students of the seminar but made the Hungarian premieres of tria ex uno by Georg Friedrich Haas and Parmi les Blancs et Noirs...at...Intervals...from the Cabin by Gyula Csapó. Presented by: MZT, Palace of Arts