223 East 52nd St, New York, NY, 10022
After its highly successful debut, we are excited to announce that the Hungarian Emerging Artists Concert Series returns with a second performance organized by the Liszt Institute New York on 13 June, 2023 at 7PM!
The concert series features up-and-coming Hungarian musical talents who are in some way connected to the United States. Hungary has been historically known as a country that gave the world several unique musical geniuses such as Ferenc Liszt, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. The goal of the Hungarian Emerging Artists concert series is to turn the spotlight on those award-winning, gifted Hungarian musicians who are currently present in the United States and provide them with an opportunity to show their talents to a wider range of audiences.
As part of the second edition of the concert series the Liszt Institute is thrilled to introduce two multi-faceted Hungarian musicians, Pianist Alexandra Balog and Guitarist Marcell Nickmann.
PROGRAM
Marcell Nickmann - Guitar
- Louis Couperin - Allemande & Courante en ré mineur (arr. Marcell Nickmann)
- Dávid Pavlovits - Asking you & Floating Islands
- Josquin des Prez / Marco Dall'Aquila - Plus nulz regretz & In te Domine speravi (arr. Marcell Nickmann)
- Johann Sebastian Bach - BWV 995: Prelude
- Astor Piazzola - Campero & Acentuado
Intermission
Alexandra Balog - Piano
- Ludwig van Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
- Franz Liszt - Vallée d'Obermann (“Obermann's Valley”)
- Sergei Prokofiev - Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28
Alexandra Gabriella Balog – Pianist
Based in London, Budapest and Graz, Alexandra Balog is a young pianist whose love for music is closely allied to a strong desire to make it accessible to a wider public. This has earned her an active audience in her native Budapest where she has been giving solo and chamber music recitals from the age of thirteen. Being a former scholar at the Royal Academy of Music in London, she earned her MMus degree in 2019 under the tutelage of Ian Fountain. Currently she is a student in Graz, Austria, studying with Prof. Markus Schirmer at the Kunst Universität's Postgraduate course. Her professors before London, in the Béla Bartók Conservatory
of Music were Zoltán Fejérvári and Erzsébet Belák.
Her most recent success is receiving the three-year-long creative scholarship from the Hungarian Arts Academy from 2022 September. Over the years spent in London, she has won the Frederick Jackson and the Margaret Kitchin Awards, and a Hungarian National Scholarship from the Ministry of Human Resources. She has been supported by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, and the Royal Academy of Music’s Entrance Scholarship for her Masters studies. Currently she is supported by the national scholarship called Talentum Hungaricum and funds from the Ministry of Human Resources in Hungary. Alexandra’s most recent first prize is from the Franz Liszt Centre International Piano Competition from Spain, La Nucia from April 2022. Alexandra has garnered a number of prizes earlier as well in significant competitions, notably 1st prize at the Budapest Arts Festival, 3rd prize in the Hungarian National Piano Competition for Conservatories, 3rd prize at the Piano Talents competition in Milan. 2017 was a particularly successful year for Alexandra: she won the first prize at the Béla Bartók International Piano Competition in Graz and received the special prize for the best interpreter of Bartók’s music. Her prize included a broadcast for the main Austrian radio channel, ORF.
Her creative personality and motivation led her to become thefounder and artistic director of the Altalena Music Festival (formerly: Bozsok Music Festival) in Hungary, an international music course and festival running since 2014. Artists like Dezső Ránki, Nicolas Altstaedt, Vilde Frang, Ian Fountain and Zoltán Fejérvári visited the festival or are annual guests there. The festival maintains its focus on debuting young musicians as well.
Marcell Nickmann – Guitarist
Marcell Nickmann was born in Budapest, Hungary and started playing the classical guitar at 14 with his first teacher, Sándor Árok. He quickly achieved success in regional and national competitions, winning several first prizes, which offered opportunities such as performing with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Chamber Orchestra in their matinée series. In 2016, he began studying with Andrea Bozóki at the Music Faculty of University of Szeged. Since 2018, he has been working with Dávid Pavlovits. In 2019, after finishing his Bachelor degree, Marcell Nickmann won Third Prize in the Tallinn International Guitar Competition and Second Prize in the Harmonia Cordis International Guitar Competition.
Marcell Nickmann is involved in contemporary music projects playing in different chamber formations. In February 2019, he premièred Claude Vivier’s Pour guitare in Hungary, and with his duo partner, the guitarist Dóra Cserenyec, they premièred Salita in discesa – a microtonal work written for them by the electro-acoustic composer Ákos Nagy. In 2020, as well as continuing to première pieces in Hungary with Dóra Cserenyec, and performing Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Tierkreis, Marcell Nickmann began to focus on early music, recently transcribing the works of the French Baroque composer Louis Couperin. In October 2020, Marcell Nickmann won First Prize in the Szeged International Guitar Competition.