Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to hear and listen, for even the shimmering silence of the forest, prayer, and art can only be appreciated so greatly when voices are silenced.
Géza Csáth and János Pilinszky both wrote with great respect and musical erudition of the composers of their era and also previous masters, the former approaching their music from the perspective of aesthetics and psychology, while the latter considered it proof of the existence of God. I share Pilinszky’s certainty, because to create a piece of music from mischievous notes, then to show and express it through the soul of the performer(s), and finally to accept it as a student with emotion and intellect is, for me, a trinity that requires the blessing of the Creator. As a middle link, as a performer, leaving the blessed work as it is, and striving to make what is possibly unblessed blessed, delivering valuable content and awakening thought in the listener: this is the noble task of our existence here.
Although the artist may already have been laid to rest, the composition yearns to continue to live, so that, with the assistance of the performer, the music can reach listeners’ hearts through their ears.
Since 1990, I have been singing in concerts and at liturgical services (with Cantus Corvinus, Voces Aequales, A:N:S Chorus, Purcell Choir, Metropolitan Budapest Cantors, Saint Ephraim Byzantine Male Choir), and I have been a member of the Hungarian National Choir since 1999. Here I sing as a tenor, although in chamber configurations and as a soloist, I appear as a countertenor (the male equivalent of an alto or mezzo-soprano). Over the course of 30 years, in the recent past and the present, I have become the most frequently engaged countertenor soloist in Hungarian concert life. My main area is the Baroque, with the sacred music of J.S. Bach closest to my heart. However, I also gladly take part in contemporary works (Bernstein: Chichester Psalms, Péter Eötvös: Radames, Gergely Vajda: Magic Mountain, Levente Gyöngyösi: The Master and Margarita). For greatly shaping and aiding my music education and professional development by sharing their knowledge with taste, humility and respect, I would like to thank Ottó Fricsovszky, Géza Klembala, Imre Földes, Ilona Adorján, Éva Lax, János Bali, György Vashegyi, Tünde Szabóki, Tamás Bubnó, Soma Dinyés and Zita Váradi.
I regularly collaborate with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra, the Pannon Philharmonic and the Hungarian Radio Music Ensembles in their concerts requiring vocal music.
In 2011, my colleagues elected me Choir Artist of the Year. For several years, I’ve also enjoyed preparing translations of the poetry serving as the basis for those of our foreign-language choral works we perform in concerts that are yet to have been treated by our literary greats (Eric Whitacre’s Sleep, Veljo Tormis’s Raua needmine, and Maurice Ravel’s Trois chansons).
