- Title: HUNGARY-LISZT ACADEMY Famed Hungarian music academy thrives after makeover
- Date: 5th June 2015
- Summary: DETAIL OF STATUE AND ORGAN VARIOUS OF DRESS REHEARSAL IN MAIN HALL OF LISZT ACADEMY SYMPHONIC ORCHESTRA PLAYING BEETHOVEN'S SYMPHONY VII CONDUCTOR KOBAYASHI KEN-ICHIRO CONDUCTING REHEARSAL REHEARSAL IN MAIN HALL
- Embargoed: 20th June 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVA3473GFZOM0KOH5FWF5IYXGN6W
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- Story Text: It's not only music that overwhelms the senses at Budapest's Liszt Academy. The famed music school has won several international awards recognising its success in restoring the old art deco splendour of its building and turning it into a unique and modern concert centre in Europe.
The Academy won a European Union's Europa Nostra Prize for the protection and reconstruction of cultural heritage in 2015 for being an "outstanding example of best practice in restoration" and "combining aesthetic splendour with innovative functional design".
The Liszt Academy has also won the 'Institutional Identity' category prize for its promotion spot film and last week received the Prix d'Excellence of the FIABCI [International Federation of Real Estate Development] for its restored façade.
The music school, founded by piano superstar Franz Liszt, reopened its main concert hall two years ago after an ambitious refurbishment plan to give the 140-year-old institution -- and its music study programme -- a new lease of life.
"We have not only managed to maintain the interest in the academy but we have been able to raise it. It's partly thanks to the beauty of the building but also, for what we have received the Europe Nostra Prize, because we not only managed to restore the beautiful old spaces in a way that is worthy of heritage preservation but we equipped the building with a 21st century technology that meets all the requirements," rector and harpist Andrea Vigh told Reuters.
One of the world's most cherished concert venues, where audience and performers alike praise the acoustics and say the spirit of musicians past seems to seep through the walls, the "Large Hall" in Budapest was painstakingly restored during a four-year closure to its early 20th-century Art Nouveau style.
The building was more than 100 years old and had never been renovated. Practice rooms were shabby, heating was bad, there was no air conditioning, so the Academy's former rector Andras Batta thought with such great music and immense possibilities they had to grow, and develop it as one of the 21st century's great concert halls.
The reconstruction of the 1907 hall, where such greats as pianist Sviatoslav Richter, violinist Yehudi Menuhin and conductor Leonard Bernstein performed, is distinguished by ebony-hued wood panelling laced with white geometric decoration. It replaces a drab brown coating dating from communist times.
A new chamber opera house is named for the late Jewish conductor Sir Georg Solti, who fled Nazi-allied Hungary before World War Two. New "green rooms" for soloists and modern catering facilities are part of the 40-million-euro ($54.7 million) overhaul.
Students and teachers alike held their breath to see if the renovation managed to maintain the very special acoustics of the main hall.
The 800-plus students who used to take their classes at the building housing the concert hall have been accommodated at a new building a few blocks away, named for the late Hungarian avant-garde composer Gyorgy Ligeti.
The academy, launched in 1875 with five professors and 38 students in Liszt's apartment, has a faculty of 168 today and is being split into two legal entities, the Liszt Academy and the Liszt Academy Concert Centre, each with its own logo.
For music academy alumni, it is essential that the institution survive and build on traditions that have given it pride of place in Hungary's distinguished musical culture.
Some of Hungary's most acclaimed musicians teach in the Academy. Eva Marton, one of the best-known sopranos in the world of music, says that for her the Academy's special atmosphere comes from the spirit of the great composers who played within the walls.
"Here you can hear and feel the spirit of the ancestors day by day, and that devotion and love with which I also come in here every day and teach from morning all day to give back to my students the devotion I received here. And also, here the spirit of such composers as [Zoltan] Kodaly, [Bela] Bartok, [Gyorgy] Ligeti, [Erno] Dohnanyi and the founder Franz Liszt," Marton said.
The makeover of the famous building, located on Franz Liszt Square in the heart of Budapest, was financed 90 percent with European Union funds and 10 percent by the Hungarian government, which hopes to use the refurbished hall as a marketing tool for luring tourists to Budapest as a "music capital".
It is an ambitious gamble, especially taking into account that with the academy's big hall reopening, Budapest, a city of some 2 million people, will have six mainstream concert, opera or music venues. If they are not competing for the same performers, they will be competing for the concert-going public.
So far the job of filling the 1,100-seat hall, plus 300 seats in the Solti opera house has been going well. The Academy has filled up more than 80% of seats in the past two years every single evening, a surprisingly high number, communications director Imre Szabo Stein said.
"Whenever somebody comes to this stage he's performing that performance only is for that night so we are not inviting touring orchestras, we are working together with the artist who we invite so the programme you have every single evening, or the majority of those evenings, are very unique and special and you can't hear it that exactly in any other place in Europe," Szabo Stein said.
Despite their limited resources, they have lined up for the next 12 months artists such as pianists Katia and Marielle Labeque, Charles Dutoit and the Vienna jazz pianist Brad Mehldau and violinist Rachel Podger among others. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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