The Debrecen Spring Festival, often called the opening of the city’s cultural season, is back. This long-standing event aims to highlight the artistic content created here, in connection with Debrecen’s City Day held on April 11, and to showcase our cultural values to a wider and wider audience.
This year’s Spring Festival program held between 4 and 19 April 2024 will focus on the triple theme of “Debreceness”, anniversary artists and novelty, highlighting the values of communities and local civic initiatives.
This is the first time that the two-week event has been organized in partnership with cultural institutions in Debrecen. This year the festival is organized by the Főnix Event Management Nonprofit Ltd, the Csokonai National Theater – Debrecen, the Kodály Philharmonics Debrecen and the MODEM Modern and Contemporary Art Centre, and the number of organizers is set to grow year on year. GAG Management is also a partner of the festival.
The program will feature legends of classical and popular music, long-awaited theater performances, dance and culinary arts, and even the chance for the audience to form communities.
Program of the Debrecen Spring Festival:
Exhibition of Péter Appelshoffer
Date: April 4, 18:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Bényi Gallery
Piano Day Debrecen: Lőrinc Barabás Solo “22” album premiere concert
Date: April 5, 19:30
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Foyer
For almost ten years, trumpeter and composer Lőrinc Barabás has been a key player and driving force in the improvisational music scene in Budapest. His various formations and club nights take the audience to the borderlands of jazz, electronic and neo-classical music.
Dance some more! – The Great Debrecen Dance Marathon
Venue: April 6, 9:30 – 19:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Grand Hall
As there is no real festival without dance, we dedicate a whole day to the most popular form of musical movement. The art groups of Debrecen will take turns on the main stage of the Kölcsey Center on Saturday, April 6, from morning to early evening. The gala will showcase 620 dancers from twenty-six clubs and almost 20 dance styles. The carnival-style program is divided into four sections, each of which is ticketed separately.
BBQ above the clouds – Grill Academy
Date: April 6, 9:00 – 18:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, roof terrace
Dániel Zákány and the Grill Academy will be waiting for the grill lovers on the roof terrace of the Kölcsey Center above Debrecen on Saturday, April 6, between 9 and 13 and 14 and 18 hours. Of course, food and drinks will also be on offer, guests can choose from the Grill Academy’s burgers and the drinks menu of the Ikon restaurant.
Fruzsi Erdős concert
Date: April 6, 19:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Ball Room
Fruzsi Erdős’s musical world is diversified, mostly characterized by melodic soft pop-rock decorated with folk music elements. In her program for the Debrecen Spring Festival, she has composed two Petőfi poems, which are among the winning songs of the Petőfi Cloud Project.
Iszkiri Band’s children’s concert
Date: April 7, 10:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Grand Hall
The members of the group, known for their modern, cool children’s music, were already playing regularly for the little ones before the Iszkiri was formed. They have been interested in the colorful world of instruments and musical genres since they were children, so in 2011, they decided to combine their hobbies and their civil profession by founding the group. As the founding members are themselves fathers and teachers with several children, they can easily communicate with their audience at their interactive concerts.
Family Day
Date: April 7, 9:00-13:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center Grand Hall, Ball Room, Foyer
The Debrecen Spring Festival’s Family Day awaits its audience with a drive-in cinema, dazzling aerial gymnasts and lots of games. You can see and hear Iszkiri band live, visit the dance house and then choose from a relaxing and creative program.
Giacomo Puccini: Bohemian Life
Date: April 8, 19:00
Venue: Csokonai Theater
When he turned to one of the greatest bestsellers of Puccini’s time, Henry Murger’s Scenes from the Bohemian World, it was clear that the success of the opera inspired by the story would not lag behind that of the book. Not quite so. Few people know about the novel today, but Puccini’s work is forever consigned to the immortal world.
English guided tour with Krisztián Török in MODEM’s new exhibition
Date: April 9, 17:00
Venue: MODEM
Giacomo Puccini: Bohemian Life
Date: April 9, 19:00
Venue: Csokonai Theater
Vivaldi & Talamba – 8 Seasons
Date: April 10, 19:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Ball Room
Vivaldi’s almost three-hundred-year-old masterpiece, The Four Seasons, has been performed in countless versions as one of the world’s best-known classical works. The audience of the Debrecen Spring Festival is now invited to a musical adventure by the Talamba Percussion Ensemble.
DIXI 40 with Nikoletta Szőke and Jr. Béla Szakcsi Lakatos – jubilee concert of the Debrecen Dixieland Jazz Band
Date: April 12, 19:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Ball
On this festive evening, the Debrecen Dixieland Jazz Band will perform the best pieces from its colorful repertoire built up over the past 40 years. In addition to early jazz gems and Hungarian songs inspired by American swing, they will also perform their own compositions. Invited guests at this special concert will be jazz singer Nikoletta Szőke, winner of the 2005 Shure Montreux Jazz Voice, Jr. Béla Szakcsi Lakatos jazz pianist, and the founder of the ensemble, saxophonist Zoltán Gyarmati.
Astor Piazzolla-Horacio Ferrer: María de Buenos Aires – PREMIERE
Date: April 12, 19:00
Venue: Csokonai Forum, Latinovits Zoltán Hall
In Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla’s now-classic tango opera María De Buenos Aires, the title character María is not only the soul of the city of Buenos Aires, but also the tango personified. A girl who lives by night, because the Argentine heart only truly opens when the tango is danced by night.
Opening of the exhibition entitled “Which year you are from?”
Date: April 13, 18:00
Venue: MODEM
In our exhibition, we want to explore the young collection of MODEM by asking questions such as: to what extent does the generation of the artist determine his/her work, its methods and subject matter? And to what extent is the visitor determined by his generation in terms of artistic reception? What do different generations expect from galleries and museums, and what can different generations get from art and museums?
Astor Piazzolla-Horacio Ferrer: María de Buenos Aires
Date: April 13, 19:00
Venue: Csokonai Forum, Latinovits Zoltán Hall
“The Voices of Youth” – Concert of the Debrecen Music School
Date: April 14, 17:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Grand Hall
The program of children’s and youth ensembles of the Debrecen Music School, multiple winners of national and international competitions, invites the audience on a musical journey from beginners to film scores and compositions written especially for wind orchestra. The soloist of the evening will be horn player Dániel Ember, solo horn player of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and former student of the Music School of Debrecen.
Impulses – Concert by the Kodály Philharmonic Orchestra
Date: April 16, 19:00
Venue: Kölcsey Center, Grand Hall
Program: Rossini: William Tell – Overture / Bruch: Double concerto in E minor for viola and clarinet, op. 88 / Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. V (E minor), op. 64.
Featuring: Dénes Ludmány – viola / László Laskai – clarinet / Kodály Philharmonics
Conductor: Dániel Somogyi-Tóth
Kincses-Zachar: Makropædia – exhibition opening
Date: April 19, 17:00
Venue: Main Library of the Reformed College of Debrecen
Gergő Kincses and Veronika Zachar won the joint curatorial competition of MODEM and the Museum and Library of the Reformed College of Debrecen. With this joint exhibition, MODEM and the Museum and Library of the Reformed College of Debrecen initiate a dialogue on the present of reading culture.
A Visit to the Kodály Choir
Date: April 19, 19.00
Venue: Assembly hall of the main building of the UD
Program:
Pēteris Butāns: Lux Aetern
Vytautas Miškinis: Neišeik saulala
Arvo Pärt: Which was the son of…
Rihards Dubra: Stetit Angelus
Ēriks Ešenvalds: Northern lights
Juris Karlsons: Rotaļa
Pēteris Vasks “Māte saule”
Uģis Prauliņš: „Kyrie” from Missa Rigensis
Urmas Sisask: Oremus
Vaclovas Augustinas: Tykus Tykus
Featuring: Kodály Choir
Conductor: Jānis Ozols (Latvia)
(VisitDebrecen)
