By establishing a Festival Choir founded on October 1, 2015 Pannon Philharmonic aimed to create a 40-person mixed choir of high quality, with its own sound culture, which is primarily involved in the concerts of the orchestra covering Baroque and Viennese classical repertoire.

The foundation, activity and work of the Festival Choir of Pannon Philharmonic is a completely unique phenomenon in the history of both the orchestra and the city of Pécs itself. The uniqueness of the foundation lies in the fact that the primary objective of the ensemble, selected according to stringent professional aspects, was to perform the repertoire of a specific music-history era with high authenticity and historical character under the guidance of László Dobos and András Vass. No such undertaking had ever taken place in Pécs in terms of choirs. The Festival Choir was characterized by great enthusiasm from the outset, and after the first "official" concerts (16 and 19 December 2015), the professional interest in the choir increased significantly.

The activities of the Festival Choir has also attracted the attention of the music scene in Budapest, since the members of the Festival Choir also include singers belonging to great Budapest choirs, but thanks to the high-level workshops and the quality of the professional work going on there, they come to sing in the Festival Choir on a regular basis. At the first public concert of the ensemble, the choir performed Anna Molnár, a Székely folk ballad by Zoltán Kodály, conducted by László Dobos. The live recording of the event is considered a benchmark by the professional scene.

The activity of the choir focuses on the extremely rich music literature to the period between the 1600s and 1800, the era of Baroque and classical Viennese period, and is striving to perform it with high authenticity and historical character. The authentic performance of the music of this era has seen a great revival in Western Europe since the mid-60s, including scientific exploration and research work on musicians, as well as studying the practice and instrumental schools of the given period and putting the experience gained into practice.

The Festival Choir is linked with the baroque concerts of the Pannon Philharmonic, through a highly ambitious professional program, whereby the ensemble performed J.S. Bach's Christmas and Advent Cantatas. Emblematic works such as Bach’s Magnificat, the famous Actus Tragicus or Haydn’s Stabat Mater were also performed with the orchestra. The largest professional undertaking of the choir has been the processing and performing of Matthew's Passion by J.S.Bach, which is one of the most complex baroque vocal symphonic works. In addition to the two-choir apparatus, the greatest challenges is represented by the manifold task of the choir: beside to the usual chorales and starting and closing choir movements, the choir is also an active participant in dramatic processes, thus the authentic performance of different roles and perspectives makes it one of the hardest and most demanding masterpieces of J.S. Bach's.

In addition to the positive response by the audience, as a recognition, the orchestra and the Festival Choir were awarded a joint Best Performance Prize in 2017 for their performance at 47th Varaždin Baroque Evenings. At the festival, they performed Paul Esterházy's Harmonia Caelestis and a cantata by Buxtehude titled Schlagt, Künstler, Die Pauken und Saiten, conducted by Tibor Bogányi. Both the professionals and the critics highly acclaimed the performances by the Festival Choir expressing their appreciation for the high performance of the choir.

Artistic Directors of the Festival Choir

András Vass

László Dobos

Singers of the Festival Choir

Soprano

Imola Réka Antal
Júlia Balázs
Emese Bérces
Tímea Dr. PálfinéTillai
Dr. Nóra. Keresztes
Dr. Veronika Livják-Rozoga
Emanuéla Faragó
Aliz Komáromi
Anikó Kopjár
Andrea Lovrek
Csilla Tillai
Laura Varga
Adrienn Vitári-Wéber

Alto

Ágnes Benyovszky
Gabriella Fodor
Nikoletta Frigy
Cecília Hódosi
Szabolcs Kiss
Karolina Kovács-Werczel
Mária Markovicsné Horváth
Zsófia Mátrai
Eszter Nárai
Gabriella Pappné Mádai
Mária Siftár
Melinda Szente
Vivien Tóthné Bodó
Anita Wéber

Tenor

Dániel Hetesi
Péter Lakner
Árpád Meláth
Arnold Mits
László Molnár
Tamás Pap
Benedek Szatmári
Tamás Szegő
Atilla Tillai
András Timkó
Csaba Zsoldos

Bass

György Bakró-Nagy
Zsolt Bartal
Balázs Deák
László Dergez Domonkos
Zoltán Dergez
Gábor Halmi
Tibor Hoffner
László Jáger
Dávid Majzik
György Silló
János Pál Timkó

Contact

Ticket Office of Kodály Centre

Dear Audience,

According to the current government decree, our ticket office is closed presumably to 2 May 2021.
Telephone inquiries can be made via 72 / 500-300 from Monday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or on Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Thank you for your understanding!

The Headquarters and Rehearsal Room of the Pannon Philharmonic

7622 Pécs,
Breuer Marcell sétány 4.

Public relations

Ms. Blanka Tatrai
sales representative
tatrai.blanka@pfz.hu

Press relations

Ms. Csilla Szabó
communication manager
press@pfz.hu
Tel.: +36 30 222 7992