Hungarian maestro heading our way

Hungarian conductor is heading to
Tasmania to work with the Derwent
Valley Concert Band this month/

LOCAL musicians and audiences are in for rare experience when Hungarian conductor Laszlo Marosi comes to Tasmania in the middle of this month.

The internationally-recognised Derwent Valley Concert Band and the National A-Grade Band Champion, the Hobart Wind Symphony, will combine to present a program of Hungarian master-works with Dr Marosi on the podium. He will also visit New Norfolk across two days to work with both ensembles in preparation for the big concert on Sunday, July 16.

"Our guest is a great advocate and champion of contemporary music, especially the music of his home country," Derwent Valley Concert Band conductor Lyall McDermott said. "He has collaborated closely with composers and soloists and premiered many new works for wind band and orchestra and has been at the helm of dozens of commercial recordings of new music," McDermott said.

Dr Marosi has received many awards for his contribution to contemporary music; for his publications and recordings of the music of Frigyes Hidas; and for his international conducting activities – the most recent of these in October last year: the Peace Ambassador Award from "Mil milenios de Paz" - Fundacion PEA - UNESCO, Argentina.

Click image to enlarge.

Much of the music in July 16 concert has never before been played in Australia and while the composers may not all be particularly well-known, their work is wonderful, easily accessible and hugely varied in style, McDermott said. The program begins with the delightful Suite for Concert Band by Frigyes Hidas. "It opens with a festive fanfare, followed by a playful scherzo, a lugubrious funeral cortège and, an elegant and rather lovely waltz."

"Simon Reade, usually seen as the conductor of the Hobart Wind Symphony will, for this concert, be the trumpet soloist in Kamilló Lendvay’s Senza Sordina - a piece that is instantly engaging, exciting, and one that has plenty of notes for the soloist. Timon of Athens is one of 74 works for film and the theatre composed by Ferenc Farkas. This suite, drawn from his incidental music to Shakespeare’s play, beautifully conjures up the atmosphere of Greek antiquity.

"Following the interval we have the music of Gyorgy Ligeti. The Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet is an extraordinary piece, each Bagatelle using a very restricted range of notes (the first uses just four) yet the resulting work is witty, dramatic, lyrical, energetic, rhythmically intense – and extremely difficult to play.

"The final piece in the concert is Save the Sea by Frigyes Hidas. This is a richly textured symphony depicting the many moods of the sea – from the beautifully serene to the tempestuous. Save the Sea will be presented by the combined forces of the Hobart Wind Symphony and the Derwent Valley Concert Band – 100-plus musicians on stage! A huge, brilliant conclusion to the afternoon’s performance. "

McDermott said the venue for this special concert would be the Farrall Centre at The Friends' School, New Norfolk, which he described as the most comfortable and audience-friendly venue in Hobart.
Admission to the 2.30pm concert will cost $15 and $10 concession. Refreshments will be available.

More information.