In 2011, composer and poet Tamás Szarka and composer Gyula Szarka, the two founding members of the Ghymes band were awarded a shared Kossuth Prize “for their compositional, performance, poetic, and songwriting work, employing virtuous use of the Hungarian language, humanist in spirit, traditional and value-preserving, resting on the foundations of Hungarian and Central-Eastern European folk music, which it promotes as widely as possible, and preserving and transmitting our treasure of folk-songs.” The songs of the 29-year-old “Hungarian Heritage” and Kossuth Prize winning Ghymes are characterized by the now well-known, unique style defined by the music and literary lyrics of Tamás Szarka and complemented by the folk-music based composer’s music of Gyula Szarka. The music of Ghymes impacts the mind, the emotions and the senses; it comes from deep down and invigorates. In 2005, their album entitled Éghymese won MAHASZ’s (Hungarian Recording Industry Association) Fonogram Hungarian Music Award; their concert by the same name was awarded the title of “Production of the Year” by ARTISJUS (Society Artisjus Hungarian Bureau for the Protection of Authors' Rights). The band professes that the energy and magic of live music emanating at any specific moment in time is the key to and condition of their success. “Their music, rooted in Hungarian and Eastern European folk tradition, has been a resounding success in terms of concert turnout, record sales, and esteem within the genre and the artistic community alike. In art there are no guarantees; no guarantee of who, after how many years of practice, and to what extent will succeed, that is if he or she will at all be successful. The work invested is confirmed only in hindsight. The results of the two decades of hard work are apparent only after the fact. The vision which, accompanied by talent and dedication, helped the poetry lover mature into a poet, propelled the dance house musician to become a musical composer and the erstwhile college students majoring in education to turn into performance artists - and yielded what is the privilege of a few: a unique and unmistakable sound. A unique sound to which only a few are privy, the real mark of personality, a unique sound discernible on more than a dozen of their CDs, a unique contemporary sound which paves the way for other artists. This is the special something the audience can always count on, the certainty that drives pre-concert ticket sales and the artistic credibility responsible for a multitude of gold and platinum records. The special quality that in the ever-expanding Europe leaves no doubt as to its origin, something akin to the best currency - Hungarian only!” (Miklós Malek)

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