The THReNSeMBle first appeared at the Bartók Festival where they played Pierre Boulez’s Dérive 1 as a reference piece and some compositions by young Hungarian and American composers connected to Boulez’s music. After this evening the Bartók Festival has asked Balázs Horváth to organize a concert for which pieces composed by young Hungarian composers should be selected. As the concert was very successful, the ensemble gathering at that time mostly students of the Liszt Academy of Music decided to continue playing together. Their goal became to perform either works of students studying composition or of those who recently graduated from the Academy, focusing also on maintaining continuous personal contact with the composers of the youngest generation.

 

THReNSeMBle performed some very important world premieres in Hungary and abroad as well (e.g. pieces by Péter Tornyai, Samu Gryllus, Rafal Zapala, Marian Lejava, Marcell Dargay etc.) They made the Hungarian premieres of Parmi les Blancs et Noirs...at...Intervals...from the Cabin by Gyula Csapó, tria ex uno and Sextet by Georg Friedrich Haas, paramyth (088) by Yannis Kyriakydes. In 2014 they will Hungarian premiere compositions by Louis Andriessen, Richard Ayres and Michel van der Aa also pieces by Philippe Manoury and Matthias PIntscher in 2015. We continue the collaborations with Krzysztof Penderecki and Toshio Hosokawa in 2016 (at BMC, in October and November).

 

Since 2009 THReNSeMBle gave concerts at events like the István Vántus Contemporary Music Days in Szeged, the French Institute in Budapest as part of the Alma Mater series of the Liszt Academy, at the Kodály Art Festival in Kecskemét and also a joint concert of Slovak and Hungarian composers at Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 2010 and 2017 they were the ensemble-in-residence of the Composition Seminar of the International Bartók Festival in Szombathely where they not only practiced and performed pieces by students of the seminar but made the Hungarian premieres of Georg Friedrich Haas and Gyula Csapó. In April, 2011 THReNSeMBle particpated at the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (the only competiton for performing contemporary music) in Amsterdam. In June, 2011 THReNSeMBly musicians recorded compositionson DVD by Samu Gryllus.

 

In January 2012 THReNSeMBle gave a concert at the Festival Theatre of the Palace of Arts (Budapest) as part of the Mini-Festival. In 2013 THReNSeMBle and VENI Ensemble gave a joint concert in Kosice as part of the ISCM World New Music Days where they played an international program.

 

They had their Polish debut in 2014 at the Poznan Spring Festival with Polish premieres of Hungarian pieces and a wolrd premiere by Polish composer Rafal Zapala. Still this year they will Hungarian premiere compositions by Dutch composers at BMC in Budapest. From 2015 they serve as ensemble-in-residence for workshops of the Péter Eötvös Contemporary Music Foundation. In 2016 Eötvös conducted the THReNSeMBLe at Tonhalle (Zürich) with Hungarian compositions.

 

Email to Balázs Horváth (artistic director): horibali@gmail.com