UMZE Ensemble: DEAD ELVIS, FRANKENSTEIN!!

Program:
Máté Bella: New piece (2024) – premiere, commissioned by the UMZE Ensemble
Michael Daugherty: Dead Elvis (1993) – Hungarian premiere
Aurél Holló: blue note, red note – a concerto (2023)
*****
H. K. Gruber: Frankenstein!! (Mr. Superman) (1976–77)

Featuring:
Attila Jankó – bassoon
Máté Balogh – chansonnier
Aurél Holló – percussion
UMZE Ensemble
Conductor: Gregory Vajda

Born in 1943, H. K. Gruber is both the doyen and the daredevil of Austrian composers. His 1977 Frankenstein!! (Mr. Superman) has toured most of the world's concert halls and will be heard for the first time on the stage of the Budapest Music Center. Just as Gruber's piece evokes the classic Viennese cabaret, Aurél Holló's percussion concerto, composed for himself, evokes the world of jazz, and Michael Daugherty's bravura piece, which resurrects Elvis Presley as a bassoonist, evokes the world of rock and roll. Máté Bella is perhaps the only internationally acclaimed Hungarian composer who has achieved great success in both contemporary classical and pop music. His composition, commissioned by the UMZE Ensemble, also explores the connections between avant-garde music and pop culture in a way that is both entertaining and thought-provoking.