Celebrating 15 years of the
Soros Foundation Hungary

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Fonó Buda Music House
Budapest XI. Sztregova str. 3.

June 25., 1999.

On 25 June, two authentic groups will be performing: the Budapest Dance Group and the Tükrös group.

The Mezőzáhi Orchestra is a traditional Gypsy string band, eminent representatives of Transylvanian and Mezőség music, whose repertoire includes Romanian, Hungarian and Gypsy folk music.

The Alsókálosa Band (Upper Hungary), by contrast, is the village version of urban Gypsy bands playing old verbunko (recruiting) music. Their instrumental compilation includes all that brought the city gypsy bands of the time such success in the West, but they still maintain the fresh naiveté of peasant music.

The Budapest Dance Group, led by Zoltán Zsuráfszki, became 40 years old last year. They will bring to the evening an aspect of Hungarian folk dance which has the strength of revival, but draws deeply on its roots.

The Tükrös group is one of the young combinations brought up in the Dance House movement. Their forte is in the vitality they bring to Hungarian instrumental folk music.

Fonó has been running since 1995, providing space to various kinds of music. Eminent musicians give concerts mainly of folk music, contemporary jazz and world music every week in Fonó.
Another of its main activities ever since foundation has been record publishing. Fonó Records roster includes György Szabados, Mihály Dresch and Makám. The company's catalogue so far contains around 70 recordings, and is bound to get bigger, thanks in part to the Utolsó Óra (Last Hour) series.
The Utolsó Óra programme has been running in Fonó since September 1997. The idea underlying this conservational undertaking is to demonstrate, by means of recording and processing the repertoire of 70 Transylvanian and Upper Hungarian groups over 70 weeks, that there exists a uniform musical language of old instrumental music from Transylvania and Upper Hungary (now in Slovakia). The collection has been organised and carried out as originally planned, as have the studio work and concert series, and top-quality CDs of the recorded music are being continuously released. The last Transylvanian group was Fonó's guest in March, and now the first half of the year concludes with the eighth Upper Hungary group. Fonó will recommence Utolsó Óra programmed in the autumn, most probably extending it to various venues outside Budapest.