Come to Budapest Spring Festival 2013!
If you’re looking for a great cultural experience this spring, head to Budapest for the annual Spring Festival. As warm breezes start to flow through the city, the population pulls together for a celebration of the best in classical, jazz, opera and folk music. Venues throughout the city welcome outstanding performers from within Hungary as well as from the international music scene.
A Little History of the Budapest Spring Festival
The Budapest Spring Festival tradition was created in 1981 by the Hungarian State Tourist Office. Concerned over the hotels that frequently sat empty until Easter, the Tourist Office came up with the idea of hosting a Spring Festival early in the year, before the rest of the European festivals began.
The festival is dedicated to the arts, and it truly has become a celebration of performing art in all its forms. Guests of all ages find events to enjoy, from folk and sport exhibitions, to opera and ballet, from theater and open-air events to classical music performances.
Throughout its history, the festival has been a colorful, exciting celebration. From its early motto “10 days, 100 locations, 1000 events” to its modern motto “the Festival is the festival of festivals,” the program represents art in all its forms, and is a beautiful showcase of ensembles and artists from at home and abroad.
The Program
The 2013 Festival kicks off on March 22nd, and stretches all the way until April 7th. Guests will have over 200 events to enjoy in 11 venues throughout the city. By location, a few key events include:
Belvárosi Szent Mihály Templom
The downtown St. Michael’s Church will be hosting the Zugló Philharmonia – King Stephen Symphony Orchestra with conductor Záborszky Kalman and vocalists Catherine Vamosi, Esther Balogh, Eugene Dean, Robert Rezsnyák. They will be performing some of Haydn’s most prominent works on the evening of March 26th.
St. Michael’s will also be hosting a performance by the Gypsy Ensemble. This versatile ensemble will be performing a range of works including classical, operetta and popular folk music.
Avilai Nagy Szent Teréz-templom
Balazs Szabo will be performing a free organ concert at the St. Teresa of Avila Church on March 23rd. This award-winning graduate of Würzburg Music Academy will be performing some challenging organ pieces by Bach.
The Saint Ephraim Choral will also be performing here, in celebration of Rachmaninov’s 140th birth anniversary. This free concert will be offered on Easter Monday.
Budapest Music Center
Celebrated violinist Xiao Wang will be performing here, accompanied by Mary Kovalszki on the piano. Wang has been playing the violin since age five, and has gone on to win numerous awards for his skill.
The Kodaly Quartet will also be performing at the Budapest Music Center. The four performers bring their colorful, romantic style to the works of Brahms and Dohnanyi. The quartet includes celebrated vocalist Judith Nemeth, Peter Velvet on viola, and Paul Banda on cello.
Also of note, the Benyounes Quartet will be performing pieces by Beethoven, Debussy and Janáček on the evening of April 5th.
These, of course, are just a few key events and places; however, the program is extensive and not one to miss. Visit the website of the Budapest Spring Festival for the full list of events and places.
Hans
Get the most out of the Spring Festival 2013, find cheap apartments in Budapest!
20th International Wine Festival in Budapest
The pleasures of wine are told from remote times. This pleasant drink has accompanied the whole world during millenniums and its a true traditional in a large part of the tables in the Western world. The relation of wine with culture are diverse and deep, as is its symbology that goes from the religious rituals to pagan and profane ones. It is, undoubtedly, the drink that blesses churches and turns into Christs blood, with the sacred elixir that encourages intoxication, poetical deliriums and sexual romance. And theres nothing more exciting that wine to increase the temperatures at the time of making love. Many of the well-known poets have sung odes to wine and its delicacies, the chaos that it provokes, its magical power and the inspiration that it produces.
Charles Baudelaire, father of modern poetry without a shadow of a doubt, is one of the main poets that made of wine a constant subject and from which many lessons can be learned. In his poetry, wine is a powerful narcotic that not only becomes the inciter of lust and passions, the blood of the lamb that spills and drinks to reach those Artificial Paradises that he talked about so much and he provoked with his harmonious and melancholic writings, but at the same time, in the voluptuous condition that, in the intoxication from wine, you can reach states of illumination and sacred pronunciation. Thats how wine provokes visions, brilliant ideas, even miraculous, and its the drink where dark and secret poetry reside.
Thats how the ancestral ceremonies to Baccus are a type of calling to the invocation of the unseen. The stupor that wine generates makes of the body a tame machinery for the gathering of imagination and dreams. And effectively, dreaming under the influences of wine becomes an experience that is blurred and filled with images of many colours. At the same time, wine incites lust and sexual desire in men and women, and is therefore the nocturnal drink that best favours romance. Imagine what it must be like to have some wine in Budapest and in the International Wine Festival. Certainly, a favourable moment for romance and to meet beautiful people who are open to adventure. This international festival takes place every year where thousands of exhibitors from around the world participate, as well as music, meetings and, above all, the animated participation of thousands of people searching for the perfect wine, the sweetest aroma that the mind can manage, romance and, who knows, maybe love too. For more information and the timetables of events of this festival on each day, visit this webpage: http://www.aborfesztival.hu/
Alexa Ray
What better than getting apartments in Budapest and be part of this international festival with the best wine and where you will surely find someone with who to share it with and spend a moment of sensuality, party and beauty in one of the most romantic cities in the whole of Europe.
Translated by: aleixgwilliam
Contact Me
