Accepted Abstracts

Frederic Balázs and Ernst von Dohnányi: From Budapest to the American Southwest

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian American musician Frederic Balázs (1920–2018) enjoyed early success, receiving the prestigious Reményi prize and becoming the youngest concertmaster in the history of the Budapest Symphony at age seventeen. He graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy with honors and later worked as a concert violinist, composer, conductor, and professor in the United States. Despite these achievements, however, Balázs’s life and work have yet to attract scholarly attention. This paper represents perhaps the first attempt to bring such attention by examining Balázs’s interactions with legendary Hungarian musician Ernst von Dohnányi (1877–1960). Their associations not only paint an introductory picture of Balázs but also provide insights into Dohnányi’s far-reaching influence and the emigration experiences of Hungarian musicians.
Balázs studied with Dohnányi in Budapest, observed his conducting of the Budapest Symphony, and felt that he possessed a spiritual kinship with Liszt. Dohnányi later helped Balazs emigrate to the United States at the advent of World War II. Once there, Balazs heard about Dohnányi’s courageous defense of Jewish musicians during the war and followed suit by collaborating with African American musicians during the Civil Rights Movement. Balázs also defended Dohnányi’s romantic compositional style. When Dohnányi left Europe at the war’s end, Balázs extended both empathy and a concert invitation to Texas, where they performed together. Despite the challenges of emigration, both musicians employed optimism and humor in their music and daily life.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Jackie Bodily Biggs is currently pursuing an MM in piano performance at Brigham Young University. As a graduate assistant, she teaches group piano classes and private piano lessons to undergraduate students. Since completing a one-year residency in Budapest in 2011, she has maintained a scholarly and pianistic interest in Hungarian music, including the relation between Hungary’s art music and its folk music, and emigration’s impact on twentieth-century Hungarian composers. Following graduate studies, Ms. Biggs plans to work in higher education and as a research associate in the business leadership industry.

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Hungarian Folk Singing Workshop (Workshop)

Type of Abstract (select): Workshop

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Held in English, this folk singing workshop is open to conference participants of all musical and language backgrounds, no previous experience required. The beautiful songs will be taught directly from village source recordings, such as those famously collected by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, and the workshop materials will include the Hungarian song words, English translations, and background information on the style. Following her presentation at the AHEA Conference in 2022 on international folk song teaching methodology, the workshop is led by Zina Bozzay, known for her accessible teaching style, academic rigor, and contagious enthusiasm. Join us!


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zina Bozzay is an active performer, researcher, arranger, and teacher of traditional Hungarian village folk songs around the world. Trained in Hungary by master folk singers, she collects from last living village singers who learned in the oral tradition. She founded the Hungarian Folk Singing Circle (Népdalkör) in 2010, and since then has taught thousands of Hungarian speakers and non-speakers from 50 countries on six continents, including at the Hungarian Heritage House in Budapest. Zina holds a Masters degree in Music Composition and tours internationally with her ensemble Vadalma, performing her acclaimed original arrangements. www.zinabozzay.com.

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Spinning and Singing: What Hungarian fonó can teach us about singing today

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian village life was rich with song, and one primary place of music-making was the spinning room. But what exactly did that look like? When and where was it held, who was there, how did they spend the time together, and why was it such a crucial place for maintaining the songs passed down over centuries? Based on original research directly with village culture bearers across the Hungarian language area who grew up in this traditional practice, this paper will present not only the practical, tangible aspects of singing at the fonó, but also some of the intangible emotional, psychological, and relational functions it served. Today, many sing folk songs as a self-standing musical repertoire, without giving thought to its original context and how profoundly interwoven singing was with daily tasks, close relationships, and villagers’ overall well-being. Examining each element of that context can inform and in fact transform our thinking about music pedagogy and the practical, social, and emotional needs of music students and all those craving more music in their lives, in Hungary and across in the globe.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zina Bozzay is an active performer, researcher, arranger, and teacher of traditional Hungarian village folk songs around the world. Trained in Hungary by master folk singers, she collects from last living village singers who learned in the oral tradition. She founded the Hungarian Folk Singing Circle (Népdalkör) in 2010, and since then has taught thousands of Hungarian speakers and non-speakers from 50 countries on six continents, including at the Hungarian Heritage House in Budapest. Zina holds a Masters degree in Music Composition and tours internationally with her ensemble Vadalma, performing her acclaimed original arrangements. www.zinabozzay.com.

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Introducing Musical Applications: games and assessment tools, based on recent research studies in Hungarian music education (Workshop)

Type of Abstract (select): Workshop

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In recent decades, the role of children's musical skills has become increasingly important owing to the growing body of scientific research and their results in music education. The renewal of music education was promoted by the Content Pedagogy Research Program supported by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, within the framework of which two Hungarian music research groups started the 4-year-long research programs in 2016. The MTA-LFZE Active Music Learning Research Group was led by László Norbert Nemes. The group developed two music pedagogy models based on the Kodály Concept, i.e. the Creative singing games with rhythmic movements and the Dynamic music learning, an adaptation of Klára Kokas’s pedagogy.
The research group of the Faculty of Music of the University of Szeged, the MTA-SZTE Music Methodology Research Group – led by Márta Janurik – aimed at enriching music methodology culture based on Hungarian traditions, using the latest technological achievements. A software program called ‘Music Island’ was developed (zenesziget.eu), which is suitable for teaching music to 6-10-year-old pupils. It is equipped with a digital task bank, and a collection of musical exercises. In the workshop, as a member of the second research group, I introduce useful applications, a collection of rhythmic and melodic games, singing activities, and online assessment systems that improve music teaching and learning based on the latest scientific findings. The aim of the activities is to introduce to the participants the joy of playing games and singing songs together, listening to music by applying a few music apps (like Zenesziget), introducing musical experiences, understanding and enjoyment. (maximum 35 persons)


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsuzsa Buzás Csontosné is a college senior lecturer in music education. She received her two MA diplomas in Music Teaching and Choral Conducting, and in Music Theory and Teaching at the University of Debrecen. She has an English Teacher BA diploma, as well. She received her PhD in Educational Science at the University of Szeged in the field of music methodology in 2017. She earned two long-term research scholarships to Luxembourg University twice, and a one-month research scholarship to Ball State University, Indiana, US. Her research interests focus on musical skills, music literacy, digital technologies, and assessment in music education.

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Musicological and pedagogical aspects of the International Society for Research & Promotion of Wind Music from a Hungarian Perspective

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The International Society for Research and Promotion of Wind Music (IGEB) explores all the aspects of wind music in multiple ways, e.g. international congresses, virtual lectures and a series of publications. IGEB was founded in 1974, and now it has over 300 members from more than 20 countries. Its president is Damien Sagrillo, who was the consulting professor of two music pedagogical projects of the Hungarian Academy of Science between 2016 and 2020.
In my presentation I focus on the Hungarian aspects of the IGEB from the beginnings. The 11th IGEB congress was organized in 1994 by Bihari János Music School in Abony, Hungary, where Sprightly Tunes by Frigyes Hidas was premiered. I present the art of Zoltán Falvy, a well-known Hungarian musicologist who was awarded honorary membership of IGEB in 2004 due to his contribution to the history of wind music highlighting his collaboration with Raoul Camous, professor emeritus of music, and honorary member of the IGEB. László Marosi a famous conductor and IGEB member since 1992 works among others with Hungarian soloists and composers, including the tuba player Roland Szentpali. He has premiered several compositions by Frigyes Hidas, Kamilló Lendvay, László Dubrovay for orchestras and wind ensembles. Zsuzsa Buzás and László Marosi’s joint article on Hungarian wind music composers, traditions and wind music education to be published in the Oxford Handbook of Wind Music by the IGEB will also be introduced.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsuzsa Buzás Csontosné is a college senior lecturer in music education. She got her two MA diplomas in Music Teaching and Choral Conducting, and in Music Theory and Teaching at the University of Debrecen. She has an English Teacher BA diploma, as well. She got her PhD in Educational Science at the University of Szeged in the field of music methodology in 2017. She earned two long-term research scholarships to Luxembourg University twice, and a one-month research scholarship to Ball State University, Indiana, US. Her research interests focus on musical skills, music literacy, digital technologies, and assessment in music education.

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Heritage Institutions and Support for Hungary’s “Gypsy Music”

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
From the beginning of Bartók’s and Kodály’s research to today, “authentic folk music” in Hungary has been understood to be rural, and urban “Gypsy music” has been largely excluded. In recent decades, musicians and culture workers have struggled over the implications of this concept in new institutions of “heritage” [hagyomány]. In the words of museum studies scholar Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, heritage is “a new mode of cultural production that has recourse to the past”–it “add[s] value” to old practices in a way that “speaks in and to the present, even if it does so in terms of the past.” That value impacts access to institutional and financial support. Hungarian Heritage House [Hagyományok Háza], the institution in charge of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble, the Martin Médiatár (archive of folk music and dance), and outreach programs for folk music, dance, and other folk arts, has cultivated a robust network of scholars and practitioners across the Carpathian Basin. While rural Romani musicians have served for decades as important informants for those scholars, urban Romani musicians have mostly been ignored, and fewer restaurants provided live “Gypsy music.” Beginning in 2017, Hungarian Heritage House supported urban Romani bands providing music in restaurants and cafés. This program has largely ended since the COVID pandemic. Using a combination of interviews and documents, this presentation shows how some urban Romani musicians have strived for greater acknowledgement of and support for their contributions to Hungarian heritage.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lynn M. Hooker is Associate Professor of Music at Purdue University; previously, she served as faculty in Hungarian Studies at Indiana University. Her writings on popular, folk, and classical music in nineteenth- to twenty-first-century Hungary have appeared in Musical Quarterly, Ethnomusicology, The Cambridge Companion to Operetta, Twentieth-Century Music, Hungarian Cultural Studies, and Oxford Bibliographies Online. Her book Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press. Her current project addresses the transformation of Hungary’s “Gypsy music” industry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries using a combination of oral history and print sources.

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Reiner, Brahms, and the American Hungarian Studies Foundation’s “Night at the Symphony”

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In April 1956, August J. Molnar and the Board of Directors of the American Hungarian Studies Foundation approached the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director Fritz Reiner with a request. The Foundation, in its second year of activity, intended to purchase a significant number of seats for a “Night at the Symphony,” for which they hoped Reiner would program a “concert of music by Hungarian composers” during the orchestra’s 1956-1957 season. Hungarian-American conductor Fritz Reiner had been a student of Béla Bartók’s and was known for his promotion of his former teacher’s works, but his reputation was not built on a particular specialization in conducting all-Hungarian concerts. Regardless, when the request from the Foundation crossed his desk, he agreed. As the concert date in March 1957 approached, however, Reiner seemed to have forgotten this commitment—instead of a program featuring music by multiple Hungarians, not a single Hungarian composer’s work was represented in the repertoire list. When alerted to this error by orchestra manager George Kuyper, Reiner responded immediately with a compromise—he added a few of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, originally planned for another concert that month, to the program. Based, in part, on examination of Reiner’s correspondence with his orchestra manager, this paper seeks to illuminate one of the early cultural activities of the American Hungarian Studies Foundation before its move from the Chicago suburbs to New Brunswick, New Jersey, while also considering the significance of Reiner’s programming change to satisfy his commitment to the Foundation’s request.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Sarah M. Lucas is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. She completed her PhD in musicology at the University of Iowa in 2018. Her dissertation, “Fritz Reiner and the Legacy of Béla Bartók’s Orchestral Music in the United States,” is based on archival research carried out in the U.S. and Hungary, where she conducted research with the support of a Fulbright Award. She serves as an AHEA Board Member-At-Large and co-chair of the AHEA conference program committee’s Music and Folklore area. Since Fall 2022 she has served as an Associate Editor for Hungarian Cultural Studies.

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Pushing the Boundaries of Hungary: Fostering Hungarian Dance in North America and Japan

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian dance has often acted as an ambassador for Hungary, but it has also functioned as a stand in for Hungarian culture and a way of life. Earlier in the 20th century, dance was a part of Hungarian celebrations and a range of arts and experiences put together by immigrants in various countries to build a sense of identity and connection to a life left far away. Communities in as different places as Australia, Argentina, Ohio, and Montreal found commonality in dances of a village life they hadn’t personally led presented in a style heavily influenced by the Moiseyev model, nonetheless reflecting a Hungarian identity.
With the advent of the Táncház movement in 1972, these groups were reenergized by a connection to communities for which dance was an active part of life and a marker of personality. Unexpected similarities to how young Hungarians in North America used dance within their cultural circles and new opportunities for self-expression presented by the introduction of improvisation, as well as the opportunity to experience contemporary village life presented by dance camps in Transylvania, aided a sense of fluid borders, as has the outreach of the recent Kőrösi Csoma Sándor program.
As a corollary to the border expansion of Hungary into North America through dance connections, this paper also cites the growth of a Hungarian dance culture in Japan, much through the outreach of individuals such as Sándor Timár, and the enthusiastic assimilation of Hungarian dance by a people responding to its charms.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith E. Olson (NYU, U Colorado) historical musicologist--traditional Hungarian music/dance in Romania, Hungary, and among Hungarians in the United States/Canada. She combines research in traditional settings, Hungarian dance camps, and revival groups with analysis of dance/music structure, process, and improvisation. She presents frequently at International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance, International Musicological Society, Analytical Approaches to World Music, Society for Ethnomusicology, and AHEA. She performs research and organizes táncház in New York City with Hungarian House and American Hungarian Folklore Centrum. Secondary research areas: International Folk Dancing in the US, Balkan brass bands, and 19th-century German music/culture.

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The History of the Kodály Ensemble of Toronto: Masters-pupils-results

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
My research is about the formation of the Kodály Ensemble and its history during the decades, masters, members, results, group formation. I would like to introduce when and how the idea of forming a Hungarian folk dance ensemble in Toronto came from. Who were the first members, and what changes did the formation cause in the Hungarian community of Toronto? After introducing the beginnings I will speak about each of the dance masters who had been working for the Ensemble. The focus will be on the technical methods they used during their periods and the effects of these methods both on the community of the Ensemble and the dance knowledge of the members. During the past few decades, there were many changes in the profession of folk dance teaching in Hungary; these changes must have influenced the work of folk dance masters in Toronto as well. I would like to summarize this improvement and its effects. Through my research, I will gain information about the forming and changing of the groups inside the Ensemble, because it can reflect on one hand how attractive the methods of the masters were from the pupils’ point of view and, on the other hand how the Hungarian community of Toronto changed during the years.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tímea Bettina Rideg, was born in Budapest. She completed the Tour Guide department of the Budapesti Vendéglátóipari és Humán Bkszc. Gundel Károly Szakképző Iskola, and the Dancer department in Fóti Népművészeti Szakgimnázium, Gimnázium és Technikum. In 2023 she graduated as a Folk Dance Specialist in the Dancer and Coach University Level program (BA) of the Hungarian Dance University. Since October 2023 she has been working as a dance teacher for the Kodály Ensemble of Toronto and the Rozmaring Folk Dance Ensemble of Hamilton.

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Changing Times, Perpetual Tradition? Generational Narratives of Folk Music Interpretation in the Hungarian Táncház Movement.

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Over the last fifty years of the táncház movement, hundreds of thousands of folk music and folk dance enthusiasts have come into daily contact with folklore through the táncház method and the Hungarian model of revival. Over the past decades, it has become clear that the narratives of revival are constantly changing as time passes, domestic and international social processes change, and the known folklore material expands and folklore interpretation methods change.This process generates a number of interpretive differences between the generational cohorts that make up the movement. These discourses permeate the public life of the revival, generating many disagreements and debates, but also providing a good opportunity for research. The aim of my paper is to provide a diachronic overview of the generational narratives of folk music interpretation in the dance music movement, the musical trends that have shaped the revival from time to time, the methodological issues raised by the changing environment, and the responses to them.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Soma Salamon DLA, folk musician and ethnomusicologist, is one of the most prominent members of the younger generations of the Hungarian folk revival movement. Besides his active performing career which spans multiple decades and continents, he is the folk music program curator and consultant of the recently launched House of Music in Budapest. He also works in the Institute for Musicology as a research assistant. He is regularly invited to make presentations at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His main fields of research are traditional flutes in the Carpathian Basin, methodology and comparative analysis in Hungarian ethnomusicology, international relations of Hungarian ethnomusicology and folklore studies, the typology of Hungarian folk melodies, Transylvanian field recordings of Béla Bartók, historical and multicultural relations of stylistic strata in Hungarian folk music, the reception of Hungarian folk music research abroad, and the distinction and borderlands between folk music and world music.

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Aranylakodalom: Fifty years of Cleveland’s Hungarian Scout Folk Ensemble

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Founded in 1973, the Hungarian Scout Folk Ensemble recently celebrated its Golden Anniversary, with 200 performers on stage and over 1100 people in the audience. Fifty years of learning and performing folk dances, fifty years of living Hungarian folk culture, fifty years of Cleveland teenagers being immersed in the language and customs of their parents and grandparents. Over the span of the Ensemble’s five decades, 410 young members, often second and third generation Cleveland Hungarians, have explored their roots, both in Cleveland and on four ethnographic research tours to Hungary and its surrounding countries. On occasion of this Golden Anniversary, a commemorative 192 page book with over 700 photographs was assembled; this paper will present an overview of the book, which includes the group’s background, history, and current state, as well as a synopsis of Hungarian scouting regös work on four continents worldwide. From the regös scout movement in 1930’s Hungary, to the 1960’s Gyöngyösbokréta movement in North America, and parallel to the 1970’s táncház movement in Hungary, with extravagant gala anniversary performances every five years, this scout ensemble transcends boundaries; its members are Hungarians in a true global context.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Endre Szentkirályi studied English and German at Cleveland State University, has an MA in English from the University of Akron, and earned a PhD from the University of Debrecen. He has edited several books of oral histories, as well as authoring Cold War to Warm Cooperation: the Military Service of Cleveland Hungarians 1950-2014 (Zrínyi Publishing) and Being Hungarian in Cleveland: Maintaining Language, Culture, and Traditions (Helena History Press, 2019). A lifelong Clevelander, he danced for ten years as a young adult member of the Ensemble. He currently teaches English and German at Nordonia High School near Cleveland, Ohio.

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American Bartók: The Sixth Quartet in Performance

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Béla Bartók had intended to dedicate his Sixth Quartet to the New Hungarian Quartet and violist Antal Molnár borrowed the score with a view to a performance in Budapest in December 1940. However, the Second World War made that impossible: the New Hungarian Quartet were in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands and Bartók stipulated that ‘while Germans ruled in Europe the quartet should not be made public’.
In the end the Sixth Quartet was dedicated to the Viennese Kolisch Quartet, who gave the premiere on 20 January 1941 at New York’s Town Hall, with the newly-emigrated Bartók in the audience; it received its first performance in Europe at London’s Wigmore Hall by the Laurence Turner Quartet on 14 April 1942. The first performance in Hungary took place at the Academy of Music on 28 July 1945, soon after which influential quartettists, violinist Imre Waldbauer and cellist Jenő Kerpely, also left for the USA.
Much has been written about the biographical significance of the Sixth Quartet for Bartók and how his experience of personal loss and emigration fed into the music’s structure and expression. This paper takes a slightly different tack, by considering the complex politics around early performances of Bartók’s Sixth Quartet as the starting point to consider intersecting representations of Hungarian and American musical identities. For the Sixth Quartet was quickly taken up by American groups such as the Juilliard and LaSalle quartets, who stressed the work’s modernity over its Hungarian origins.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Musicologist. BA Oxford 1996, MA Nottingham 1997, PhD Princeton 2002; lecturer at tthe University of Reading 2002-4, Senior Lecturer University of Manchester 2004-2014, Professor of Music University of Oxford since 2014. Elected Member of Academia Europaea 2020 and Fellow of the British Academy 2021; Dent Medal from the Royal Musical Association 2021.

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