One hundred years after Zoltán Kodály's collecting trip, the Hungarian Radio Children's Choir returned and gave concerts at the original locations. The October excursion was a great experience for the children and local people who performed in the nine small villages of the three counties. For an 89-year-old elderly lady from Gacsály, the children's performance was the best experience of her life, Bartók Rádió Sing with us! from the Friday morning show, in which they could hear an experience report about the choir's tour.
"While looking for Zoltán Kodály's biography, I discovered that in October and November 1921, the composer was on a collecting tour in the counties of Komárom, Szatmár and Nógrád, and I also found the folk songs collected here. That's when the idea came that it would be good to go to these villages and meet the people who live there, since these are very small villages, in a secluded part of Hungary," said Judit Walter, the organizer of the trips, the teacher of the children's choir, about how the idea came about, which was also gladly supported by the management of the Hungarian Radio Art Ensembles, and thus the choir visited nine settlements in the three counties on October 20-21, one hundred years after Kodály, as part of a small tour.
Concerts were given, among others, in the medieval church in Túrrics, in the community center in Komlódtótfalu and in the primary school in Gacsály, but Kocsord, Tolmács, Héreg, Tarján, Gyermely and Gyarmatpuszta were not left out of the tour.
Folk songs from the collections of Béla Kodály and Béla Bartók were sung at the locations, and in each village, one of the folk songs collected there was taught to those present.
Bartók Radio Sing with us! In his program, in addition to Judit Walter, two young singers from the Hungarian Radio Children's Choir, Nóra Máté and Stefánia Szekeres, also told about their experiences. As they said, the locals welcomed them with great love, they dressed up for the performances and it was evident that they will not soon forget the personal visit of the children's choir.
"There was, for example, Aunt Gizi Gacsályon, who is 89 years old and has been retired for 32 years. She also had a very nice conversation with us, but after the concert she went into the convenience store and cried in her emotion.
The shopkeepers later told me about this and also that he said: he often thinks that he shouldn't live much anymore, but now he knows that it was worth it for this opportunity, because he had never seen such a beautiful performance" - they shared their experience on Bartók Rádio the choir members.
What the folk songs of Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók mean to the participants and whether they plan to continue the successful mini-tour was revealed in the entire conversation, which can be listened to again by clicking on the link below .
Bartók Rádió's choir magazine, Sénekelj with us! it welcomes students from 9.30 a.m. on Fridays.
Source: Felvidek.ma
