Liszt Academy 150 – Anniversary Concert Presented by Liszt Academy

The legendary artist-teacher of the Liszt Academy, organist and composer Dezső Antalffy-Zsiross, spent more than four years in the United States during the first half of the 1920s. After concert tours, teaching, composing, organ design, and as a contemporary article succinctly put it, “unceasing work and much recognition,” he returned to Hungary in 1924. Among the pieces he composed in America, the Festival Prolog stands out for its grandeur. This festive overture was first performed in Cincinnati in the city’s enormous concert hall, capable of hosting ten thousand people. The piece, arranged for organ and orchestra and based on popular American songs, was initially performed with the composer himself involved. During the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra’s concert, Balázs Szabó will perform it on the Grand Hall’s Voit organ. The concert will conclude with a new composition by Máté Bella, a faculty member at the university’s Composition Department. Before that, 17-year-old Teo Gertler will perform as the soloist in Béla Bartók’s violin concerto composed between 1907 and 1908.