The performance will be broadcasted on Müpa Budapest’s website and YouTube channel.

Debussy: Petite suite (arranged for orchestra by Henri Büsser)

Rodrigo: Aranjuez concerto

Bizet: Symphony in C major

András Csáki – guitar

Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor: Karen Kamensek

Three works, three bits of magic – and all of them different! The French Impressionist composer’s Petite suite is a gallant evocation of the past, while the Spaniard’s guitar concerto invites us on a journey to exotic Iberian lands and the symphony by the future composer of Carmen – written over a short period when he was an adolescent – whisks us off to a world of uninhibitedly liberated experimentation with sound and youthful abandon with irresistible naturalness. The collaboration between the popular Hungarian guitarist and the noted American conductor promises to make for an exceptional event.

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) originally composed his Petite suite as a piano piece for four hands, with flights of imagination venturing into the beauties of bygone times in four dreamlike movements: En bateau, Cortège, Menuet and Ballet. After losing his sight to diphtheria at the age of three, Joaquín Rodrigo (1901–1999) developed into a virtuoso pianist, but nevertheless made his way into music history as the artist who created a place in the classical repertoire for the guitar. When he was writing his 1939 work Aranjuezi concerto – which features a melancholy middle movement bookended by two much more temperamental ones – he had no idea that he was creating one of the greatest classical music hits of the 20th century. The symphony that Georges Bizet (1838–1875) virtuosically jotted down when he was a 17-year-old student of music composition is not only reminiscent of the music of his teacher, Gounod, it also abounds with memories of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Schumann and Mendelssohn. At the same time, it is charming, fresh and irresistible. Born in 1981, András Csáki is one of Hungary’s most outstanding guitarists: a globe-trotting soloist, he also teaches at the Liszt Academy. Karen Kamensek, born in 1970, is a successful conductor of both symphonic music and opera. She has made her début at the Metropolitan Opera and collaborated on numerous works with Philip Glass.