Tuesday evening saw the official closing of the 12th Young Musicians’ Summer Academy (YMSA) organized by the Faculty of Music of the University of Debrecen. The concert of Kodály Zoltán World Youth Orchestra was held in Kölcsey Center.The event started with some greeting words by István Fábián, Rector of UD. As he told, the summer academy is one of the most important cornerstones of the culture mission of the university and this year’s mastercourses and concerts has fitted in the series of the centenary programmes. He said special thanks to four people: Tamás Vásáry and Máté Hámori, for their exellent, 10-day work with the orchestra, and Mihány Duffek and Judit Váradi for the hard work of organizing and ensuring a proper background for all the musicians attending the courses and the orchestra rehearsals.
After the Rector’s speech, Mihány Duffek, Dean of the Faculty of Music evaluated this year’s summer academy. The 10 days of the summer academy saw altogether 17 concerts: every student and artist teacher of all instruments played smaller or bigger concerts, and about the half of the participants has taken part in the work of the World Youth Orchestra. Mentioning anniversaries, the Dean told: this year was not only important for the university but also for music education in Debrecen, as official, institutional music education began 150 years ago in our city. Besides the ”visible faces” of the summer academy, he also said thanks to all the participants whose admission fee made the whole programme possible and all the co-workers who helped to arrange and coordinate the 10-day long event.
After the words of greeting and thanks, the concert could really begin. During the first half, the audience could listen to Nabucco – Overture by Giuseppe Verdi, Summer Evening by Zoltán Kodály and Hungarian Fantasy by Ferenc Liszt. In the latter, János Balázs Jr. played the piano solo and before the break, he also played extra 3 short solo pieces for the pleasure of the audience.
After the break, the orchestra played Simphony No. 2 by Johannes Brahms. After the loud success, the musicians suprised the audience with two of the Hungarian Dances by Brahms.
At the end, the world-famous conductor, Tamás Vásáry told that 12 days before this orchestra had not even existed but after days of hard work, they could build up a whole concert programme. He told he enjoyed working with the young, talented musicians and was looking forward to meet everyone next year.
The Kodály Zoltán World Youth Orchestra plays another concert in Budapest this evening, then they travel to Milan, Italy to introduce themselves to Italian music lovers in the famous Auditorium.
