A talented musician with a European vision and a deep love for Hungary

In 2011 we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Ferenc Liszt’s birth. The year-round series of programs includes more than a thousand concerts, exhibitions and conferences worldwide, dedicated to one of the greatest piano virtuosos of all times.

The events of the 2011 memorial year is to introduce the multiple layers of Ferenc Liszt’s human and artistic personality in order to get closer to the composer celebrated at his bicentenary, as well as the social, material and intellectual environment of his diverse operation. The preparations for the celebration have been in progress for years all over the world. “It is a lucky coincidence that Hungary will take over the EU presidency in the first half of 2011,” organizers say. “This is the best timing possible for introducing the maestro and his works to Europe. We must perform his compositions as often and as authentically as possible in tribute to his defining contribution to universal cultural history,” says Zoltan Kocsis, ambassador of the Hungarian Liszt Year, adding, “Everywhere, from his tiniest little sketches to his major works, we find the unmistakable, immediately recognizable individual voice that is the mark of the greatest creative artists.”

With to the cooperation of Hungarian cultural institutes and several international sponsors, events are coordinated by Hungarofest Nonprofit Kft. KLASSZ Zenei Iroda and supported by the International Liszt Association. Their purpose is to act as an umbrella organization grouping the Hungarian and foreign institutions, experts and festivals that have set themselves the goal of making Liszt’s work as widely known as possible. “An outstanding event of the Liszt Year will definitely be the World Liszt Day, when several orchestras will play Liszt's grandiose Christus oratory from Paris to Seoul,” organizers note. The global performance of this monumental work would mark Liszt’s birthday, Oct 22. “It is also important to highlight the Liszt Marathon, which will be held in May at Budapest’s Millenaris Center.” According to organizers, the Liszt Year is an excellent opportunity to make Hungary and the Hungarian culture visible and audible not only within the Hungarian borders but all over Europe and the whole world. “The events planned for the Liszt Year will prove that our country has had a deserved place between the first-line representatives of classical music for centuries.”

Liszt, the Hungarian citizen of the world

Ferenc Liszt was an amazingly colorful personality and a musician with an eventful life in the 19th century Europe. The musician, who planned to reform liturgic music, enriched the genre of religious music with grandiose oratories and masses. He was a broad-minded, intelligent and independent European world citizen, who felt comfortable in every corner of the world. A music pedagogue as well, he practically launched the operation of the Music Academy in his own flat in Budapest. In 1865 he received the courtesy title abbot.