The benefit concert of Concerto Budapest for the International Children’s Safety Service on Zoltán Kocsis‘ birthday.

On Zoltán Kocsis‘ birthday, Concerto Budapest’s benefit concert series with the fancy title Viva La Viola! for the International Children’s Safety Service will focus on an indisposable, fundamentally important yet frequently somewhat disregarded instrument, the viola. The first concert of this auspicious day will provide the well-versed interpreters of the instrument with a lead role, or rather, with a series of lead roles, while featuring two 18th century jewels of the viola solo repertoire: Concerto in G major for Two Violas by the famously prolific Telemann – a violist himself – from the 1730s and a 1779 classical piece by Mozart, a Sinfonia Concertante, which puts the viola into a virtuoso and glamorous position, making it a real equal to the violin. Following the two compositions with brilliant solo parts by outstanding string instrumentalists (Janka Szomor-Mekis, László Móré, Gábor Homoky and András Keller, who will not only conduct the concert but also feature as a solo violinist), our audience can enjoy a through and through 20th-century musical treat with the participation of Maxim Rysanov, a violist who is always enthusiastically celebrated in Hungary.  Bohuslav Martinů's Rhapsody Concerto is the very piece whose 1953 premiere in Cleveland was conducted by none other than György Széll.