The events in Hungary surrounding Piano Day 2019 will conclude with three concerts being held in the Festival Theatre. The first two will feature Hungarian performers: vaghy, whose music fuses the piano with electronic improvisation, and the keyboard/percussion/bass trio iamyank Live Ensemble, augmented by string players. It was vághy - that is, Tamás Vághy - who first brought Piano Day to Hungary in 2017, and now he will present a new programme buttressing the sound of the piano with various electronic effects, while also expanding the range of possibilities offered by the keyboard with vintage instruments. Together with the seven-member iamyank Live Ensemble, the versatile electronic music producer iamyank, who is always pushing the genre-related boundaries of his style, will present his compositions based on the sounds of keyboards and modular synthesisers and also provide a glimpse into their upcoming second album.
These first two performances will flow into each other. Following the interval will come the first-ever concert given in Hungary by the Ukrainian-born artist Lubomyr Melnyk, who was inspired by Terry Riley to start to develop his own individual technique. Based on extremely rapid playing and the almost continuous use of the pedals, this continuous music, as he himself calls it, unleashes ceaselessly merging and clashing resonances and melodic arcs whose effect is essentially that of the infinite. Born in 1948, Melnyk remains to this day one of the quickest-playing pianists in the world, and one whose works have always been greatly influenced by nature. Listening to his compositions can be akin to the feeling of listening to a river transormed into musical notes. The revolutionary nature of his work remained unrecognised in conservative classical music circles for decades, but with the new generation of modern classical music, his meditative and endlessly complex pieces, ecstatic with energy, have received the status and distribution they deserve. Melnyk plays concerts relatively rarely, making this appearance an unmissable occasion.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest