{"id":3220,"date":"2023-01-17T14:31:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T13:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/?p=3220"},"modified":"2023-01-17T14:34:46","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T13:34:46","slug":"jan-23-interview-with-andras-halmos-news-calls-and-55","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapamundimusica.com\/en\/newsletter\/jan-23-interview-with-andras-halmos-news-calls-and-55\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan. 23. Interview with Andr\u00e1s Halmos, news, calls and + #55"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary\u00a0\ud83d\udc47<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Editorial<\/span><\/p>\n

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Interview with\u00a0Andr\u00e1s Halmos, musician, head of concert programming at the\u00a0House of Music\u00a0Hungary and artistic advisor and concert booker for the M\u00dcPA<\/span><\/p>\n

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Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects<\/span><\/p>\n

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Open calls and more news from professional events\u00a0\ud83d\udcbc<\/span><\/p>\n

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Meet me at\u00a0\u2708\ufe0f<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"If<\/a><\/td>\nIf you like this content, forward it<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
\"Share<\/a><\/td>\nShare it in FB<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Hello, <\/strong>how are you?<\/strong><\/div>\n
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I am very well.\u00a0I started this year by confirming some concert dates that make me very happy. Others I can even announce now. For instance,\u00a0Ali Do\u011fan G\u00f6n\u00fclta\u015f<\/a>\u00a0with his trio\u00a0in Urkult<\/a>.I am sending you this letter from Brussels. Tomorrow I will attend a meeting in Gent of the board of the European Folk Network (EFN). By the way, the EFN has been granted in the program MusicAIRE, for the project of the European Folk Day. It has been publicly announced in the latest newsletter of the EFN. I invite you to be updated about this organization by signing up for that\u00a0monthly newsletter (just fill in\u00a0this form<\/a>).\u00a0Its latest edition<\/a>\u00a0is somehow connected with this one of Mapamundi, but it is just by chance. The featured artist of the month is\u00a0Balogh K\u00e1lm\u00e1n, the fantastic Hungarian Roma\u00a0cymbalonist. There you will find a small tribute to him and some brief memories of those times, 23 years ago, when I had much more difficult access to this musics than I do now.<\/p>\n

And our protagonist for today is also Hungarian.\u00a0One of the aims of this newsletter is to understand the events, paths and passions that lie beneath the delicate fabric of cultural management related to the activity of the kinds musics that Mapamundi M\u00fasica\u00a0work with. We see who is where, who does what, but I often wonder how that person came to be responsible for the decisions that shape the circuit of\u00a0world, traditional and folk musics.\u00a0I really enjoyed it and I am very grateful to Andr\u00e1s Halmos for revealing some of the keys to his development\u00a0to become\u00a0the head of programming at the House of Music Hungary. A position that sounds fascinating as well as a great responsibility.\u00a0My path and his are very different, but there is something about what he explains that I understand very well and that many who read this will surely understand too: this need, this impeliment, to create spaces for the dissemination of the music we love.<\/p>\n

I won’t go on any longer and I’ll give way to him. And under the interview there\u00a0is some other information that I hope will be of interest to you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Remember: if you have any news of interest for our community, let me know. Thank you very much for your attention.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi M\u00fasica\u00a0|\u00a0+34 676\u00a030 28 82\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
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AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

ANDR\u00c1S HALMOS<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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My first approach to Andr\u00e1s Halmos has been through his role as head of programming of the\u00a0House of Music Hungary<\/a>\u00a0(Magyar Zene H\u00e1za, in Hungarian)”. It is a building which is itself a work of art designed by Sou Fujimoto and which opened a year ago, in January 2022.\u00a0Here is a photo below, which I have taken from the Facebook page of the organisation, and\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0is a gallery of impressive photos of the building outside and inside.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But Andr\u00e1s’ profile, like that of many of the people who appear on these pages, is not monolithic. He is also a musician. You can listen to a\u00a0playlist about the albums he has played on<\/a>\u00a0while you read the interview. Moreover, years before assuming his role at the Zene H\u00e1za, he was already artistic advisor and concert booker for the M\u00dcPA.\u00a0But it is he himself who will explain his professional path.<\/p>\n

I am very grateful to Andr\u00e1s for his generosity in answering all my questions.
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Mapamundi M\u00fasica: Your website enumerates your activities as a drummer and as a concert programmer but, could you tell us a bit more about your background? How did you start in music?\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Andr\u00e1s Halmos:\u00a0<\/strong>I started playing the drums at the age of 17 and I got into it quite intensively. Soon, I joined various bands, and I was lucky enough to play with more advanced players than I was at that time.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the beginning, my main inspiration was the music of the 60\u2019s (singer-songwriters, psychedelic rock, blues, etc.), then I began to be influenced by jazz and Indian classical music. For the latter, my entry point was a concert by Sultan Khan and Zakir Hussain, that was a revelation to me. Later on, while I was playing in a jazz big band (organised by Mediawave Festival for 3 consecutive years), I had the opportunity to play and learn from drummer Hamid Drake and double bass player William Parker, they also had a huge impact on me. They drew my attention to Moroccan Gnawa music, also to the African origins of jazz. By that time, I had become interested in traditional music from all over the world.<\/p>\n

I was listening to amazing bands and musicians who had never played in Hungary, and I also saw many while I was on tours abroad, so I decided to find a part time job as a music programmer. It took three and a half years of searching and applications before I won the trust of the director at the Trafo House of Contemporary Arts and became their concert programmer in 2004. This venue is mainly for contemporary dance, but they had 2 concerts each month, and I was given the freedom to experiment in new territories. I\u2019ve focused on music that had only rarely or never been heard in Hungary before. These were really good times. As it turned out, there was a demand for these kinds of concerts and somehow this music profile gained a reputation in some local circles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Let’s try to understand what Andr\u00e1s might have felt at that Sultan Khan and Zakir Hussain concert<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n