Stefano Bollani: Napoli Trip & Cziffra Impressions, Guest: János Balázs / Cziffra 1000

György Cziffra, who was born a hundred years ago, was a legendarily versatile musical personality. The many ordeals he faced in his life compelled him to take on a plethora of musical roles: not only did he excel in the virtuoso works of the classical repertoire, in his difficult years he also amazed patrons while working as a bar pianist. His great strengths were improvisation, his imagination, and composing brilliant paraphrases for popular Romantic works.

Born in Milan in 1972, Bollani began his musical studies at the age of six and was only 15 when he began his still busy concert career. Officially considered a jazz musician, he has also delved into the worlds of pop music and classical concerts. Exemplifying his openness free of stylistic and genre boundaries is the fact that he has collaborated with such international jazz luminaries as Chick Corea, Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, Bobby McFerrin and Lee Konitz, while also partnering with classical musicians like Riccardo Chailly, Daniel Harding, Kristjan Järvi, Zubin Mehta and Antonio Pappano. His performance in Budapest will be based on his concert show Napoli Trip, with the popular treasury of Neapolitan songs serving to inspire the pianist in this programme. Since the festival commemorates the memory of Cziffra and his art, Bollani will spend part of the evening improvising on arias from popular operas by Rossini, Puccini and Leoncavallo, and it will no doubt also be an exciting time when the Italian artist is joined on the stage by guest artist János Balázs to improvise together on two pianos.

The government of Hungary has pronounced the hundredth anniversary of the birth of György Cziffra to be a memorial year, and UNESCO has added it to its list of jointly celebrated anniversaries.

The program is taking place as part of the György Cziffra anniversary year with the support of the Prime Minister's Office and the Bethlen Gábor Fund.

Piano, Fender Rhodes: Stefano Bollani

Featuring:
Tenor saxophone, flute - Daniele Sepe
clarinet - Nico Gori
Drums - Bernardo Guerra

Guest:
Piano - János Balázs