A fascinating world will be revealed for those who have succeeded in passing the demanding entrance examination of the Liszt Academy as they walk through the gates of this 150-year-old institution. The play of light and shadow lends the building different moods throughout the day and evokes a multifaceted tradition tangible in the classrooms and the two concert halls.
A living tradition as established in the nineteenth century, epitomized in the twentieth and cherished in the twenty-first. The Liszt Academy is the ideal place to study for those who wish to perform Classical and Romantic music, be it secular or church music, who wish to get acquainted with Hungarian musical culture, its luminaries from Franz Liszt to György Ligeti, who want to be initiated into the widely respected Hungarian piano and string schools, for all those who are not satisfied with mastering the solo repertoire but love collective music-making, chamber music, orchestral playing and choral singing, for those who strive to be on the opera stage, and last but not least for those who would like to study music theory and music history at a very high level.
We not only perform music but we also listen to music, as the Liszt Academy is at the centre of the Budapest concert scene, strategically placed at the heart of cultural events that take place in Hungary’s capital, close to the State Opera House and many theatres. Ours is the only music institution that bears the name of Franz Liszt and was actually founded by this multi-faceted genius. Among our prestigious alumni and professors your will find names such as Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, icons who have inspired generations of musicians throughout the world.
The Academy has always taken pride in meeting the standards set by its founders and revered professors, and has offered all its facilities in order to initiate the students into a special and demanding Hungarian style of teaching. Those who enter the Liszt Academy know that attendance implies a serious commitment to a perfectionist approach to music. Studying here means hard and disciplined work under the guidance of professors for whom teaching is a passion and not only a profession.
The Liszt Academy has Hungary’s oldest jazz department and a recently established folk music department, which, following Bartók’s and Kodaly’s footsteps, aims to present and teach the Carpathian Basin’s unparalleled musical heritage for those students who have decided to reawaken the tradition of folk music as performing artists.
The Liszt Academy can be compared to a perfect score in which every small detail, every angle, is part of the whole. The departments are not enclosed islands but lively workshops providing bridges across the different subjects. We spend our daily lives together and make music together. We feel at home wherever good music is well performed and we offer a home for everyone who wants to join us in this endeavour.
Prof. András BATTA
President of Liszt Academy of Music
