The permanent exhibition of the Erkel Ferenc Memorial House in Gyula has been expanded with interactive elements, a new IT system and Ferenc Erkel's valuable personal items. The exhibition in the birthplace of the composer of our national anthem was modernized with the support of the Ágoston Kubinyi program. The development was handed over by L. Simon László, the director general of the Hungarian National Museum, on Friday afternoon.

In the presence of the descendants of Ferenc Erkel, Márta Erkel Tiborné Bognár, Vera Erkel and Ákos Somogyváry, the renovated permanent exhibition of the composer of our national anthem's birthplace in Gyula was handed over on Friday afternoon.

For the development - during which the entire IT system of the exhibition space was replaced - the municipality of Gyula won eight million forints within the framework of the Ágoston Kubinyi program of the Ministry of Human Resources. The settlement provided nine hundred thousand forints of its own resources for the subsidy amount.

At the handover ceremony, the director general of the MNM said, among other things: Although the structure of the permanent exhibition of the Erkel memorial house in Gyula handed over in 2011 has not changed fundamentally, thanks to the support it has been expanded with a number of self-developed IT tools. Among them, a smart mirror based on artificial intelligence that can be controlled with a conductor's baton and hand gestures, as well as a musical courtyard bench. In addition, all of the interactive tools were replaced with more modern ones.

At the same time, the artefacts that can be viewed were also added.

The golden wreath that Ferenc Erkel received from the nation for his fiftieth anniversary as a conductor was included in the galleries. The gift, decorated with fifty precious stones, was made by goldsmith Gusztáv Bartsch in 1888. According to urban legend, the ornament survived the Soviet occupation in 1944 in a shoebox left in a safe. The composer's manuscript score, which was recorded in the memorial album of the 18-year-old Mária Marczibányi on January 1, 1849, has also just been included in the exhibition. The Gyula museum bought the relic in 2018.

Enikő K. Gurzó's detailed account of the handover ceremony in Magyar Nemzet .

Featured image: Ferenc Erkel Memorial House (Source: Gyulaváros.hu)