Meeting Kurtág

For my final concert at the Swiss opera studio, I learned Kurtág’s Töredékek (József Attila Fragments) based on József Attila’s poetry. As has become almost a habit for me over the past few years, I drew illustrations to accompany the songs during the learning process. I grew very fond of the piece. After much hesitation, I decided to contact Kurtág to show him the work and collaborate on it. I can’t summarize in a few words what that experience was like, but every part of me was stirred and torn apart, and yet I kept looking forward to the lessons with greater joy. On the one hand, he addressed my mistakes very harshly, but on the other, he continuously encouraged me to play and praised my initiative. He was strict but also very kind. I hesitated whether to show him my drawings because I feared he might think of me as an attention-seeking teenage girl, but the opposite happened. He took them as seriously as possible and held me accountable in my singing for the contents I had captured in the drawings.
These photos were taken when Kurtág received the commemorative medal from his old Piarist high school in Timișoara. At the end of the celebration, we were asked to show a part of the piece we were working on. Csapó Johnny took these photos, and I am sharing some of them here.