Besides Hungary, audiences are welcomed at thirty-four venues abroad – including Hungarian communities beyond the borders – for this year’s Night of Organs (Orgonák éjszakája) concerts on Whit Saturday, 7 June.
The aim of the Night of Organs series has remained unchanged since its founding (2019): to introduce as wide an audience as possible to this instrument, special in its size, form and possibilities – “the queen of instruments.” As part of the event, organ music can be heard not only in the usual venues (churches and concert halls) but also in public squares, at the Széchenyi Thermal Bath, at the zoo, on Deák tér next to the Ferris wheel, in a circus production, in theatres and in front of cultural institutions. Organ music will also ring out in the middle of Lake Balaton and on the Danube aboard sightseeing boats.
In Szeged, organ music will ring out from the fountains from the afternoon until eight in the evening, and the Night of Organs (Orgonák éjszakája) fanfare will also be heard during the evening Holy Masses. The programme will also include a visit to an organ factory, offering a behind-the-scenes look at instruments under construction. Organ music will also feature in a series of family events and in a puppet show.
On 7 June, Whit Saturday, 34 venues abroad will join the international programme of the Night of Organs: in addition to Hungarian-populated towns beyond the border (e.g. Révkomárom, Nagyvárad and Kolozsvár) and many major European cities, concerts will also be held in the United States, Peru, China, India, South Korea and Algeria. Key Budapest venues will include the Liszt Academy, Matthias Church, the Uránia National Film Theatre, the Capital Circus of Budapest and the School for the Blind, which is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its founding.
One of the main venues of the Night of Organs outside Budapest this year is Debrecen, where Hannfried Lucke, professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, will give a concert in St Anne’s Cathedral. In the basilica in Pécs, British organist and choral conductor Martin Baker, former president of the Royal College of Organists, will give a solo recital. Other venues: Békéscsaba, Kecskemét, Szeged, Miskolc, Győr, Balatonfüred, Keszthely, Kaposvár, Székesfehérvár, Szombathely, Sopron and Nyíregyháza. As part of the Fanfare Marathon (Fanfár Maraton), held to mark the Night of Organs, Ott Rezső’s work Toccata Fantasia Festival, written at the request of Filharmónia Magyarország, will be performed at several hundred venues across the country. Music lovers can also follow some of the programmes via online broadcasts.
As part of the Night of Organs, world-famous Argentine opera singer José Cura and Liszt Prize-winning organist Szamosi Szabolcs will give joint concerts featuring works by Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck and Giuseppe Verdi, as well as spirituals and an excerpt from Ramirez’s Misa Criolla. The two artists will perform in Révkomárom on the afternoon of 7 June and in Matthias Church in the evening. The other highlight is a joint concert at the Liszt Academy by German organist Christian Schmitt and French organist Vincent Dubois, organist of Notre-Dame, together with Concerto Budapest.
The full programme of the Night of Organs is available on the filharmonia.hu website.
Source: MTI, filharmonia.hu