Sound Dome

DOME 008 – BOSCH The Garden of Earthly Delights

Although the Bosch exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts has ended, from December the House of Music is bringing the Garden of Earthly Delights to life. In the domed room a 360-degree projection of Miss Virgács’ (Nikolett Németh) collage animation technique sets the Dutch painter’s altar triptych in motion to the accompaniment of contemporary polyphonic choral works by Cantemus, subtly distorted and modulated by MA'AM (Anna Makay), and complemented by diabolical sound sequences.

Running time: 35 minutes

Age limit classification

We do not recommend viewing the show for viewers under the age of 16.

Dome 016 - Csontváry: Levante

Audio-visual adaptation of Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka's paintings in the spirit of the solar journey, from Naples to Jerusalem.

View or vision? Many people have asked this question after seeing Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka’s paintings. The paintings of this artist, considered a unique and eccentric figure in the history of Hungarian art, leave no one indifferent. Dreams awakened by landscapes he had never seen before, and the depiction of reality directed towards the sky, of living nature tending towards surrealism, are one of the keys to his art. He was looking for the journey of the sun, the great motif and the mystic, and he believed that he could only find it in the East, in the lands of the Levant. At the turn of the 20th century, he made several trips to the provinces east of Italy, following the line of the increasingly popular Asian tourist routes.

Our musical journey takes us on an itinerary based on four scenes and twelve paintings, from the city of Castellammare in the Bay of Naples, through Athens and then Jerusalem, to the 6,000-year-old cedar of Baalbek. The artist's well-known and lesser-known paintings are brilliantly illustrated with compositions written and performed by renowned Hungarian and foreign performers, linked to each location. A canzone by the Italian Faraualla and Fratelli Mancuso, followed by a popular rebetiko by Veronika Varga and the Esperia band, then Jordi Savall and the Faran Ensemble evoke Jerusalem, and finally the ethereal music of Dhafer Youssef and Ádám Kalamár closes the round.

Csontváry's monumental paintings, his masterly brushwork, his colours glowing with the power of the soul from an unmarkable, unlocatable source of light, now enchant the visitor in the Sound Dome of the Hungarian House of Music, who, following the traveller who has been on an adventure for 100 years, can board a plane, a boat or a train to answer the question: is the master's oeuvre a vision or a spectacle?

Running time: 25 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 3.

DOME 009 – Cloudhitects: Point Cloud Budapest

The next show at the Sound Dome is a point cloud journey that exhibits the sights of Budapest in a naturalistic point cloud environment. All these images begin to behave in an abstract way at a certain point in the audio-visual projection, with spaces merging into each other during the journey. The abstractions reinterpret the scanned spaces and they come to life on the surface of the Dome. The Parliament building, Chain Bridge, Várkert Bazaar, Hold Street, Heroes' Square, the Academy of Sciences, the National Gallery and the Eastern Railway Station all appear in the production.

Running time: 24 minutes

Age limit classification

We do not recommend viewing the show for viewers under the age of 10.

DOME 010 – 'Tales from the Lakeside'-day

The Lengemesék, characterized by Judit Berg, are a big crowd favorite in domestic waters, from which a TV series and two full-length cartoons were made. Now they are reviving in a new dimension not only for older kindergarten and elementary school children.

Language: hungarian

Running time: 20 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 3.

DOME 001 - Siblicity

Siblicity – created by the brothers Péter and Gábor Halász – invites you on a journey of self-discovery, a kind of hypnosis, with visual content provided by Makró VJ and András Nagy.

The ever-evolving layers of visual and audio worlds that mix analogue and digital techniques merge into three-dimensional audio-visual content. Using a microscope, Macro VJ creates his own universe and visual gestures from materials collected in nature. For this work, bird feathers and leaves were collected and placed under the microscope, which András Nagy has set into dialogue with animated visual content that projects onto the sound dome screen. In a strange vision of colours and geometric patterns, everyone can actually visualise whatever they wish, and to the extent their imagination allows. They are feathers and plant vines, yet they can be compared to the blood vessels of the human body. Free association is permitted, but the experience is hypnotic.

Creators: Siblicity (Péter and Gábor Halász), András Nagy, Makro VJ (Dávid Kara, Aniko Skribek)

Running time: 30 minutes

Age rating:

This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 6.

Warning to those at risk of photosensitivity attacks

A small percentage of people may suffer seizures when exposed to certain visual images, including the flashing lights and patterns that form part of the show.

Photo credit: Orsolya Varga

Sound Dome - DOME 000 Moods

It is a unique creation, its possibilities are unpredictable. You have to come here from time to time to get to know the latest discoveries. The first message conveys the sounds and images of the Carpathian Basin from a special auditory and visual perspective.

Running time: 21 minutes

Age rating:

This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 4.

DOME 006 - The Intergalactic Gateway

What can the Sound Dome do? What is ’surround sound’? What is 360-degree projection? How are works produced for a unique audio-visual system like this? On this occasion, the Sound Dome itself will answer – using the voice of the actor Barbara Hegyi – more questions than you can shake a stick at, using a projection to lead the audience on a fabulous journey, illustrated with excerpts from the content currently being shown at the Dome. This short film aims partly to show the variety of ways in which the creators are able to use the technology built into the space, and partly to introduce viewers to the diversity of genres that can be explored within it. They can experience, for example, what happens when sound and image are in synch, and what it is like to have visual content responding instantly to sound and music at any given moment.

The virtual tour, which sets off from Liszt Ferenc Airport, offers visitors a playful way of exploring the complex system of the Sound Dome and its hidden potential.

Vazul Endre Mándli is the artistic curator of the new content woven together for the Sound Dome, Panni Néder is the story writer and director, while the sound engineer for the compilation is Tamás Zányi, the sound engineer for the Oscar-winning film Son of Saul, who has won multiple awards and international acclaim. The visual content was created by Gáspár Batta and András Juhász.

The screening of "Sound Dome: The Intergalactic Gateway" will be presented by the House of Music Hungary in cooperation with Budapest Airport as part of BrainBar 2022 and will then be included in the content available daily.

Running time: 29 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 6.

DOME 019 - RENOIR

Running time: 25 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 6.

DOME 012 - LIGETI GYÖRGY: SYMPHONIC POEM FOR 100 METRONOMES

The Symphonic Poem for 100 Metronomes is one of György Ligeti's best-known compositions, the visual aesthetic of which leaves a deep impression on all who witness it. It is no coincidence that this piece was also played at the time of his final farewell. The work is hypnotic and provokes deep reflections on the themes of time, existence and our relationship with the universe. The Symphonic Poem is also a critique of György Ligeti's contemporary musical milieu and the radical composers who saw themselves as such. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of György Ligeti's birth, we start the 100 metronomes on the screen of the Sound Dome, as the composer instructed, and listen from the centre of the magical space as the clicks run out of time, together or separately, until they are all silenced.

Running time: 22 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 12.