The Tour

Introducing the Choir

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The concerts - time and location

Pictures - New York / Cleveland / Chicago / Detroit / Toronto

Ernest Kish on the tour and the concert at New York

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Oratorios performed by the Choir at concerts:

• Bach: Cantata 21
• Bach: Magnificat
• Bach: St. John Passion
• Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
• Handel: The Messiah
• Vivaldi: Gloria
• Haydn: The Creation
• Mozart: Requiem
• Mendelssohn: Elijah
• Mendelssohn: Psalm 95
• Kodály: Missa Brevis
• Kodály: Psalmus Hungaricus

Apart from the ministry performed in the Baptist Fellowship, the Hungarian Baptist Central Choir also performs at different ecumenical events, events for charity purposes of non-ecclesiastical organization and concerts not organized by the Church. This is how the Choir performed Mozart=s Requiem in cooperation with the Symphonic Orchestra of the Danish Radio at the Budapest Spring Festival of 1999, conducted by Ádám Fischer, a conductor of international fame.

The Hungarian Baptist Central Choir has acquired good reputation outside Hungary for the benefit of the Hungarian Baptist Fellowship and the Hungarian musical culture. So far, the Choir has visited the following countries: Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Slovakia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Romania (Transylvania), and Yugoslavia.

Gábor Oláh

Gábor Oláh is Choir Master of the Hungarian Baptist Central Choir, chairman of the music committee of the Hungarian Baptist Union, department head and assistant professor of the Baptist Theological Academy, and since August 2001, a teacher of the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy (Budapest). He is at the same time a dedicated presbyter of the József Street Baptist Church in Budapest, and conductor of the church choir. Being the son of Lajos Oláh the former pastor of the Baptist Church in Toronto, he was able to pursue musical studies from his early youth, yet in spite of that, he first graduated in engineering. After a few years work in engineering, his choice finally fell on a musical career. He graduated with excellence as conductor and teacher of music at the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy. He has been a member of the Choir of the Hungarian Radio as a professional singer since 1980, where, apart from singing, he also worked as a tutor in charge of teaching the choir. For three years, he has been an appointed deputy conductor. As a member of the Choir, and as an independent conductor, he has received a number of national and international awards, such as the Bartók-Pásztory Award, and the conductors’ award at the 3rd Budapest International Choir Competition, in 1991.

Imre Pátkai

 Imre Pátkai

 

Imre Pátkai was born on April 4^th, 1973, in Budapest. He began to play the piano at the age of six. During the summer of 1989 he participated in the "Young Artist Piano Program" of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (USA, Massachusetts) where he received an invitation later to return on two occasions.

     From 1991, he was a student of the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy, a student of László Baranyay and Jenõ Jandó.

     In 1993, he placed second in the ÁHZ-IBM Mozart Piano Competition. During the summer of 1995, he participated in the master course of György Sebõk in Switzerland.

     In September 1996 he was a semi-finalist in the Liszt Ferenc International Piano Competition in Budapest.

     He graduated with excellence as a piano artist and teacher in November 1996.

     He has been invited to play in the concert halls of Vienna, Gottingen, Jena, Helsinki, London, New York and Boston. He has had a number of concert tours with Timothy Bentch opera singer in the State of Missouri and Pennsylvania. Both as a chamber musician and a soloist, he has regular performances in Budapest, in our rural cities, and abroad as well. He is a permanent accompanist of our choir.

Andrea Meláth

Andrea Meláth

Andrea Meláth was born in Budapest, in 1968. She began her musical studies in 1991 at the Teacher Training College of the Music Academy (Budapest). She graduated in 1995 as a singing teacher and chamber music artist. She continued her studies at the Music Academy, and graduated in 1998 as a singer. She has received awards at a number of musical contests and competitions:

     1996 scholarship at the Bayreuth Festival

     1997 2nd place at the Kósa György international singing contest

2nd place in the cat. of perf. at the cat. of Composers

     1998 Fischer Annie scholarship in Hungary

     1999 3rd place at the Wigmore Hall International Singing Contest in London, accompanied by Imre Pátkai, pianist 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000

She received recognition from the ARTISJUS music foundation for her outstanding activity in the field of Hungarian music.

     2001 received Ferenc Liszt award from the Hungarian Ministry of National Cultural Heritage and also received the Andor Mándy award of the State Opera House of Hungary.

     The peak of her career as an opera singer was the role of Judit in Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’ Castle performed at the Spring Festival of 2001. Beyond the number of roles she performs in operas, she is a frequently invited soloist of national and international concert stages (e.g.: the orchestras of the Hungarian Radio, MATÁV and MÁV). She had concert tours in the USA, was selected the soloist of the year in 1997 on Madeira, had three musical evenings in London, sang a role in Verdi’s Requiem once in Paris and twice in Austria.

     Singing plays an important part in her career. She has four records issued by HUNGAROTON:

     - Comp. works of Bartók Béla (rec. MIDEM Award in Cannes)

     - Vajda János - Orbán György Songs (record of the month in July 2000, issued by GRAMOFON)

     - Bartók - Kodály - Lajtha folk song settings

     - Edmund Mihalovich songs

     Almost constant soloist of festivals: Mini-Festival, the Music of our Age, Spring Festival, etc.

Szabolcs Tóka

Szabolcs Tóka was born in 1959. He graduated as an organist and music teacher in 1985 in Budapest at the Liszt Ferenc Music Academy. By receiving a state scholarship he was able to attend a number of master courses abroad (in the Chech Republic, Belgium and Switzerland). Since 1988 he has lived in Székesfehérvár the ancient Hungarian coronation town. He is a teacher of the municipal music school and used to be a director of the school for five years. At present, he is a teacher of several musical institutes (in Bodajk, Mór, and Tatabánya), and also a teacher of the Baptist Theological Academy (Budapest). He has had concerts as a soloist with an orchestra or a choir in a number of European countries and in Israel, and a number of records have been made with his participation in the Netherlands.