Submitted Papers

Lajos Bárdos Composer, Music Educator and Model for Generations

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Bárdos was one of the outstanding artistic talents of the twentieth century. His unique, captivating personality left an impression on all who came in contact with him. He was a highly effective educator, conductor, composer, musicologist, music publisher and last but not least he was a great family man who raised eleven children.
Bárdos was drafted in the army near the end of World War I. Later he enrolled at the Budapest University of Technology but after a year of successful engineering studies he switched to the Franz Liszt Music Academy to study composition under Zoltán Kodály.
At a large camping jamboree in 1921 he started teaching Hungarian folk songs and composed his first piece for mixed voices, the ever-popular hauntingly beautiful “Szellő zúg távol”. He was responsible for music during the 4th International Scout Jamborre at Gödöllő in Hungary in 1933. In 1928 he was invited to teach at the Music Academy, where during almost 40 years he taught fourteen different courses, subjects for future music teachers and conductors of choirs. The “Singing Youth” movement which became well known and practiced worldwide – including Hungarian communities in the United States – was launched and managed by him.
The presentation will introduce him and his model-value life and activities with special focus on his intention to make Hungarian folk music better known and to develop happy communities of young people.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Huba Brückner, born into an academic family in Budapest, in 1946, holds degrees in telecommunications and education from the Technical University of Budapest. His doctoral dissertation concerns the design and application of instruction with computers. From 1970 to 1986 he worked for SZÁMOK/SZÁMALK – a computer education center – providing training on computers for students and experts from forty countries. Dr. Brückner was responsible for the content and organization of these courses.
In 1974 Dr. Brückner spent six months in the United States under the United Nations Development Program and studied the use of technology in education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Florida and Stanford University as well as at the Mitre Corporation and the Control Data Corporation.
From 1975 to 1981 Dr. Brückner was the Director of Educational Television Programs at SZÁMALK. He has lectured at the Technical University of Budapest and at Eötvös Loránd University. Dr. Brückner served as the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian Office of the International Data Group and he was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian version of PC World.
He became the first Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission (Hungarian-American Commission for Educational Exchange) in January 1992. He served as Executive Director for 21 years and worked hard on developing the US-Hungarian Fulbright Program to one of the best in the world. The Fulbright Commission in Hungary had many initiatives which were implemented by other commissions worldwide.
Dr. Brückner is the author of ten books and many scholarly papers. His last book is on the life and achievements of composer, conductor, music educator and musicologist Lajos Bárdos. The hard covered book is color illustrated.
Dr. Brückner is married with six children. Among other civil activities he served as the president of the Hungarian Association of Large Families. hubabruckner@gmail.com

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Edouard Reményi: Fiddler, Patriot, Spy (?)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The violinist Edouard Reményi was one of the most colorful figures in 19th-century music. A significant virtuoso best known as the man who “discovered” the young Johannes Brahms, Reményi has gone down in history as somewhat of a charlatan: flamboyant, opportunistic, and deceitful — a characterization propagated by his contemporary Joseph Joachim, and, to a large degree, by Johannes Brahms. Joachim’s picture of Reményi entered the Brahms biographies, and has persisted to the present day. But is it true? In this talk, I will examine Reményi’s venturesome personality and adventurous life in the turbulent years before he met Brahms, including his life as a Hungarian revolutionary and his sojourn in America in 1850.

Concurrently, I will tell the story of Reményi’s involvement with a group of Hungarian exiles led by Count László Újházi, who sailed to America and, with President Zachary Taylor’s personal support, established the colony of New Buda in Decatur County, Iowa. Reményi accompanied the exiled patriots, who had fought against the Austrians and were hailed in America as heroes of democracy. Arriving in Boston, Remény gave a high-profile concert tour, beginning in New York and ending in New Orleans, to raise money for the exiles. Returning to Europe, he was listed as a “politically dangerous” member of the Hungarian "Umsturzpartei," and wanted by the police. It was then that he met the young Johannes Brahms, who accompanied him on a famous journey to visit his Hungarian compatriots Joachim and Liszt.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Robert Whitehouse Eshbach
Violinist, conductor, and historian Robert W. Eshbach is an honors graduate of Yale University (BA). He studied violin at the Vienna Conservatory, and holds a Master of Music degree in violin at New England Conservatory. His recent publications and invited papers have focused on nineteenth-century musicians: Joachim, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Reinecke, and Wilhelmine Norman-Neruda. His article, “Joachim’s Youth — Joachim’s Jewishness,” was published in The Musical Quarterly. He has presented papers in London, Oxford, Cardiff, Southampton, Meiningen, Leipzig, Weimar, New York, Boston, New Haven, Nashville and elsewhere. Eshbach is associate professor of music at the University of New Hampshire. robeshbach@aol.com

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Possibilities for Implementing Hungarian Folk Song Teaching Methods into American-Hungarian Education // A magyar népi ének tanításmódszertan átültetésének lehetőségei az amerikai magyar oktatásba

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
What are pillars of the methods of teaching Hungarian folk singing today? What are the most important rules and directions that we should follow? How can you apply the practice of folk singing, with 40 years of history, in American-Hungarian education? What parts can be easily inserted without professional knowledge? Consequently, what are the areas to be developed and how can those be solved? Hungarian folk singing is one of the most fundamental parts of our Hungarian culture, so it is crucial in American-Hungarian education as well. Borbála Konkoly, a folk song performer and teacher, answers these questions, outlining a possible way that professional methods of Hungarian folk singing can be implemented in American-Hungarian education.

Hogy épülnek fel a mai magyar népi ének tanítás módszerei? Melyek a legfontosabb szabályok, irányok, melyeket érdemes követnünk? Hogyan lehetne a 40 éves múlttal rendelkező népzenetanítás, esetünkben népi éneklés gyakorlatait átvenni az amerikai-magyar oktatásba? Mi az, ami professzionális tudás nélkül is könnyedén beilleszthető? Ebből következően melyek a fejlesztendő területek és megoldási javaslatok? A magyar népi éneklés a magyar kultúra egyik legalapvetőbb része, így elengedhetetlenül jelen van az amerikai magyar oktatásban is. Konkoly Borbála népi ének előadóművész és pedagógus előadásában ezekre a kérdésekre ad válaszokat, felvázolva egy olyan lehetséges mintát, amely az amerikai-magyar oktatásba is beilleszthető.
(Presentation in Hungarian)


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
My name is Borbála Konkoly and I was born to a family of folk musicians in Budapest. The love of folk music has been natural to me since my childhood. I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Performance from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 2015. I continued my studies, and in 2017 I received a Master's degree in Music Pedagogy from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. I have 13 years of pedagogical experience. My earliest teaching experiences are related to scouting and summer music camps, and during college, I taught in music schools. In addition to my music diplomas, I also earned a music business management qualification (www.zeneiparihivatal.hu). My specialization is serving as festival promoter. I am currently working in Boston as a Kőrösi Csoma Sándor Program scholar.

Konkoly Borbála vagyok. Budapesten, népzenész családba születtem, ezért gyerekkorom óta természetes számomra a népzene szeretete. 2017-ben végeztem a Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetemen népi ének előadóművészként és pedagógusként. 13 éves tanítási tapasztalattal rendelkezem. Legkorábbi élményeim a cserkészethez és zenei nyári táborokhoz kötődnek, majd az egyetemi évek alatt már zeneiskolai keretek között is tanítottam. A zeneművészeti diplomáim mellett zeneipari menedzsment képesítést szereztem. A zeneiparban promoterként tevékenykedem. Jelenleg a Kőrösi Csoma Sándor ösztöndíjasaként a bostoni magyar diaszpórában dolgozom. konkolyborbala@gmail.com

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Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto no. 1: Corrected First-Edition Scores and the Concerto’s Performance and Publication History

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Bartók’s early performances of his Piano Concerto no. 1 (1926) in both Europe and the United States were hampered by issues in the first-edition score. As a result, on a few major concerts, most notably for Bartók’s American debut with the New York Philharmonic, the Concerto was replaced by Bartók’s Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra (1905), a work that was not representative of his more mature style. Although Bartók later acknowledged the Piano Concerto’s difficulty for players and audiences alike, the mistakes in the first edition also affected the success of his early performances, as well as the critical reception of Bartók’s music. Corrections of the errors mentioned above appear not only in the second-edition score, but also as handwritten entries made by at least two hands in the three extant first-edition scores, two of which are recently discovered scores associated with the conductor Fritz Reiner. This paper establishes the link of the three extant first editions to Bartók’s performances with two major American orchestras in 1928—Fritz Reiner and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, it documents the nature of the corrections as they relate to one another, to Bartók’s corrections, and to the published second edition. Since no recording of the work with the composer at the piano is known to survive, analysis of the scores used by Reiner and Koussevitzky in performances with Bartók provides an important window into the way Bartók performed his Piano Concerto no. 1.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Sarah Lucas is a PhD candidate in musicology at the University of Iowa currently completing her dissertation “Fritz Reiner and the Legacy of Béla Bartók’s Music in the United States.” She carried out one year of dissertation research at the Budapest Bartók Archives with the support of a Fulbright Award in addition to her research in the U.S. at Northwestern University’s Fritz Reiner Collections and other archives. She holds an M.A. in Music History from the University of Missouri (2012) and her master’s work culminated in the thesis “Béla Bartók and the Pro-Musica Society: A Chronicle of Piano Recitals in Eleven American Cities during his 1927–1928 Tour.” sarah-lucas@uiowa.edu

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