Concert of Joy 2006

The fourth Concert of Joy will be a good successor of the previous years: it tries to be the summary of the creativity of an outstanding and unique artist.

Félix Lajkó, together with his friends, will show his colorful musical talent, his endless variations of syles. You can listen to him playing solo, in trio and together with the guest musicians invited.

Despite his young age Lajkó has cooperated with a large number of musicians, but this concert is going to be unique because he has never incuded so many different music styles in one concert although they all are inevitable parts of his life.

At the concert only Lajkó's own compositions will be played. The concert is going to be a summary because a large number of such musicians will be his guests who played an important role in his life, among them Mihály Dresch who was voted the Hungarian jazz musician of the year 2005 by journalists. He will play a few numbers together with Marko and Boban Markovic sounding a completely unique world of sounds together. He will also play the zither and will be on stage together with Magdi Rúzsa, the winner of this year's Megasztár competition.

„The basis of my music is the sensitivity of my instrument and its colorfulness. I do not play any new styles of music, I just follow my own path, improvise and compose music. I do not differentiate between styles and trends; I play folk music, classical music, rock, blues, jazz and improvisative melodies."

The nearly 100 square meter stage will be built in front of the main entrance of the 125-years-old building of the Houses of Parliament, and thus the building will also provide the background for the hour-and-a-half concert that will be free for everyone, and will also be broadcasted by the Hungarian National Television (mtv)íand Duna Television.

Félix Lajkó was born in Topolya (Vojvodina) on 17 December 1974. His first musical instrument was the zither that he started playing at the age of 10. He first tried playing the violin in the 6th Grade of primary school. He finished elementary music school in 3 years in Kishegyes. He left the 2nd Grade of musical secondary school of Szabadka for Budapest with a lended violin, where he became a member of Dresch Quartet. Since then he has been travelling between Budapest and Szabadka linking equally to both his mother country and Vojvodina.

He has played together with a large number of well-known bands and musicians. He was a member of György Szabados's band, Makúz and Boris Kovac's band, Ritual Nova. He has performed together with the world-famous Japanese bhuto dancer, Min Tanaka and the French Noir Desir band a number of times. He has had many concerts together with the Rumanian violin player living in London, Alexander Balanescu and with Boban Markovic's brass gipsy band. He has composed music for some theatrical plays. Among others he wrote the complete music material for the Szabadka Theatre's Public enemy production, but Jozef Nadj from Orlean also asks him to compose music for his performances regularly and he has also composed music for coreographies of Ivett Bozsik. He composed the whole musical score for Wheels, a film by Ljubisa Samardzic from Yugoslavia. It was also him who composed the hymn for the 1998 Sarajevo cultural festival, Sarajevska Zima. He has participated in many fiction films and Miklós Jancsó made his short film Play, Félix! about him. He wrote music for Towards a New Atlantis, a project of the Venice Biennale in 2000.

His playing the violin has charmed the music loving audiences of Tokio, Amsterdam, Berlin, Bratislava, Prague, Budapest, Brassow, Beograd, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Frankfurt, Lyon, Bordeaux, Venice, Verona, Edinburgh, London and Ulm. He is a recurrent guest of Theatre de la Ville in Paris, in 2001 he and his band were guests of the Wuppertal festival of Pina Bausch and he played at the opening ceremony of Grimaldi Forum cultural anf conference centre in 2000 in Monaco. In 2001 he played at the Avignon Theatre Festival in the courtyard of the papal palace as the only participant from the Hungarian Season.

His first award was in 1993 when he received the Emerton Award of Hungarian National Radio together with Dresch Quartet. In 1999 he received the For Hungarian Arts award, in 2000 he became an honorary citizen of Szabadka. In 2005 he received the Officer's Cross of the Order of the Republic of Hungary.

Mihály Dresch founded his first quartet in 1984, 5 years after finishing jazz school in which his partners were István Grencsó, wind instrument player, Róbert Benkő, bass player and István Baló, percussionist. After a few changes in arrangement it became the classical setup (with Tamás Geröly - percussions, Ferenc Kovács - violin) by 1995. This was replaced by the new Dresch Quartet with István Baló again behind percussions, the violin is played by Ferenc Kovács and the bass is played by a young talent, Mátyás Szandai. Mihály Dresch is one of the most versatile saxophone players of Hungarian jazz. Beside his unlimited respect for traditional jazz, for him elements of Hungarian folk music suit jazz very well. At the same time he can play together with such jazz giants as Archie Shepp or the giant of Hungarian-Gipsy jazz, Kálmán Kovács.

Magdolna Rúzsa, the young nurse from Kishegyes won the third Megasztár, the talent scout competition of TV2. She is a promising talent who is from the same village where Félix Lajkó spent the longest period of his youth.

The Boban and Marko Markovic Orkestar is one of the most unique and best received bands of Serbian folk music and world music. They are regular guests of concert series at home and abroad, their film music is known and loved all over the world. Their participation at the Concert of Joy is an outstanding event of an artistic cooperation lasting a few decades now.

The artistic director of the concert is Vladimír Németh,
the directors are Katalin Bodó and György Papp