Binder trio plays Bartók
Binder trio plays Bartók
This programme is held in Hungarian.
Károly Binder is a pianist, composer, and a professor at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, and is a significant figure in the Hungarian jazz scene. With his formation called Binder Trio, he launched a series of albums in 2018, which transitioned Béla Bartók: For Children into his own musical world – a synthesis of different musical cultures, compositional techniques, and improvisational systems. In 2023, the last piece of the five-CD series was released, and the complete work was published as a collected edition in 2024. Together with his grand-scale musician trio, he performs the Bartók-inspired cycle at the House of Music.
“The Binder Trio’s jazz adaptation of Bartók’s For Children is a unique interpretation of the composer’s small pieces. From a contemporary perspective, the audience can reinterpret the folk music culture.” Or, as Károly Binder approaches Bartók's works: “When I first played Béla Bartók: For Children from the very beginning, I couldn't make friends with the small pieces; somehow, I always felt a sense of lack after performing these works. Perhaps the variations known from classical music styles or further explorations of the themes were missing. When I finished the pieces, I often felt that this is when they should begin. Later, when I taught them, we often improvised on an ostinato, on a sequence of harmonies. During the rearrangements, I tried to present different moods and characters.”
Rock Troubadours (US, 70s): CSNY, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Roy Harper
