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Sound Dome

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2022/01/23 -
2026/12/31
Sunday -
Thursday
10:30 - 17:30
Sound Dome
Type:
Sound Dome
Genre:
Electronic
House of Music Hungary production

Sound Dome

What is a sound dome?

 

This question can be answered quite literally: a dome-cupola, which emits sounds. But it is more than just that. Our sound dome is also a projection screen with a sound system behind it. Anyone sitting in the middle will hear sounds coming from all directions.  The world of sounds is evoked here starting with those of nature to composed music but the experience visitors have here expands beyond this dimension. This dome is also a laboratory producing new sounds: alchemy at the highest level. It is a unique creation with unforeseeable potential.

It is worth returning here from time to time and making new discoveries. The first show conveys the sounds and images of the Carpathian Basin from unique audio and visual perspectives.

 

The 360-degree dome is also a projection screen, and the 27.4-channel ambisonic sound system is located behind it. Here, those who sit in the middle of the square can turn their heads! The sound world comes to life, from the sounds of nature to composed music. This is a laboratory for the production of new sounds, alchemy at its highest level. A unique creation, its possibilities are unimaginable. You have to come here from time to time to learn about the latest discoveries.

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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.

The screening is in Hungarian, but this should not affect your experience.

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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.

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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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.

The screening has no dialogue, recommended for guests of any language.

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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.

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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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.

The screening has no dialogue, recommended for guests of any language.

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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.

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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DOME 019 - RENOIR

Running time: 25 minutes

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

Having already given us new ways of looking at Bosch and Csontváry, this Sound Dome programme will feature a great painter being exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts for the third time. This latest audiovisual work features the paintings of Renoir set in motion using both manual and digital (so-called generative) imaging techniques. The animated imagery is also enhanced by music that moves in every dimension. What makes these unique installations created from the painters’ works so special is the way they allow visitors to examine the pictures from much closer up than they would be able to view the original paintings with the naked eye, incorporating them too into these stories painted centuries ago.

Visual composition: Dániel Németh
Musical concept & sound design: Ákos Lovász, Ádám Kalmár

The screening has no dialogue, recommended for guests of any language.

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DOME_020 SOMLÓ DÁVID: A TEREK BESZÉLNEK – HALLOD? 

Running time: 22 minutes

Flowing imperceptibly into each other in Dávid Somló’s contemplative work for the Sound Dome are sustained resonant musical sounds and imagined soundscapes, accompanied by a projection based on the dreamlike animation of the artist’s own analogue photos, providing visitors with space to immerse themselves in the sounds and their own memories. 

Creators: Dávid Somló - Composition,
Photos András Szombathy - Visuals

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 7.

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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DOME_021 PLATON KARATAEV - NAPKÖTÖZŐ 

Running time: 22 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 7.

The songs in the screening are in Hungarian, but this does NOT affect the experience.

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DOME_022 ZSOLNAY FÉNYFESZTIVÁL SHOWCASE

Running time: 16 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 7.

The songs in the screening are in Hungarian, but this does NOT affect the experience.

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DOME 024 – Red-footed Falcon

The Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society's Red Footed Falcon Conservation Working Group has produced a unique three-dimensional film for the 20th anniversary of its creation, which can be most effectively presented on this three-dimensional hemispherical screen in the SoundDome at the House of Music. MMTE was commissioned by National Geographic to film in Angola, the world's largest nocturnal roosting site for birds of prey, where the world population of red footed falcons congregates before beginning their migration to Europe. The three-dimensional short film is complemented by a short educational documentary on the project on the screen of the hemispherical dome, and the African pulse is rounded off by a selection of nature photos taken during the expedition. During the DOME_LIVE premiere, there will be an opportunity to ask questions to the creators and the expedition participants.

Running time: 20 minutes

Age rating:

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

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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DOME 023 – Szauder Dávid: Mestersége az intelligencia

Though artificial intelligence has existed for almost four decades, its development has accelerated at nearly incomprehensible speed over the past 18 months to 2 years. It’s hard to know whom and what to believe. Both the arts and artists themselves can expect to be impacted by this marvellous new digital age. So it’s time to take a deep breath, fasten our seat belts and spend the next 20 minutes letting artificial intelligence reinterpret the art of the past 2000 years. Imagine the Greek temples of antiquity being built by robots, dancing Roman statues, Byzantine mosaics populated by fighting Star Wars characters instead of martyrs, Botticelli’s Venus emerging from an ice cream cone, and what Bosch’s altar would look like in a zero gravity world. Quite a bit different, right? While intended partly as entertainment, the video montage also helps visitors understand what artificial intelligence can be used for, if we have the courage not to fear it.

Running time: 20 minutes

Age rating:
This performance is not recommended for children under the age of 7.

The screening has no dialogue, recommended for guests of any language.

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DOME_025: Tibor Bozi: Face to Face

Running time: 20 minutes

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

The songs in the screening are in Hungarian, but this does NOT affect the experience.

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DOME_014 TIBOR SZEMZŐ: CSOMA KALEIDOSCOPE (English)

In the kaleidoscope – and on this occasion the Sound Dome kaleidoscope acts in magical way – his music and the soundspace open up together uniquely to evoke the indescribable Himalayan environment in which the pilgrim-scientist Sandor Csoma lived out his days among the mountains.

Language: English

Both the visual and musical worlds of the Csoma Kaleidoscope reach back to Tibor Szemző's Arboretum Suite (2002) and his film The Guest of Life (2006). In the kaleidoscope – and on this occasion the Sound Dome kaleidoscope acts in magical way – his music and the soundspace open up together uniquely to evoke the indescribable Himalayan environment in which the pilgrim-scientist Sandor Csoma lived out his days among the mountains.

"To the scholars of his generation, Csoma was an obscure figure from Transylvania, abandoned and stateless among the Himalayan mountains, but from their peaks he cast the shadow of a giant across Central Asia."
W.W. Hunter

In this work, we hear the voice of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma delivering his personal account, originally written for a certain Captain Kennedy. In it he relates his travels and his aims after his detention by the British authorities on suspicion of espionage. Doctor Gerard, the British doctor who visits Csoma in his cell, also contributes as fragments of the Hindu world filter in through the kaleidoscope of Francis Bain's enchanting narrative. The source of the texts is the Csoma biography Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Körös / Kőrösi Csoma Sándor dolgozatai (1885) by Tivadar Duka. The intimate, personal narration, spoken from an eyewitness perspective, is embedded in and accompanied by instrumental and vocal music that is orchestrated for the unique tonal qualities of the kaleidoscope, meanwhile the images multiply in a kaleidoscopic fashion fully in harmony with the music. During the nineteen movements of the performance, the approach to Csoma is assembled and we the audience come closer to understanding what this ’adventure' must have been like from the inside, and to experiencing the incomparable experience of spaciousness.

 

staff
Tibor Szemző – director, music and text
Dániel Németh – visuals
Ákos Lovász – sound design
Vazul Mandli – curator

the film crew
István “Taikyo” Szaladják – photography
Gábor Roskó – paintings
Kása Papp, Bálint Kolozsváry - animations
Teri Losonci – editor
György Durst, Attila Bognár – producers

the musicians
The Gordian Knot Creative Music Lab
Zsombor Dudás – drums and percussions
Ildikó Fodor – soprano voice
Tamás Geröly – gardon
László Gőz – basstrumpet, sea shells, tillinkó
István Grencsó – tenor saxophone
Ernst Hirschberg – keyboards
Mihály Huszár – electric double bass, bass guitar
Szabolcs Keresteš – piano, celesta
László Kéringer – tenor voice
Zsigmond Lázár – violin
Éva Posvanecz – viola
Alois Samson – wind controller
Tibor Szemző – narrator, bassflute, 8mm-phone
T. Bali – electric guitar

Voces Aequales Ensemble
Zoltán Gavodi – countertenor voice
Csaba Gyulai – tenor voice
Zoltán Mizsei – baritone voice

Tomasini String Quartet
László Paulik, Erzsébet Rácz – violin
Éva Posvanecz – viola
Balázs Máté – cello

Lobsang Dhamchoe – chanting voice
Lama Lobsang Gedun – recitation

recording and sound design
Alois Samson – Fodderbasis
István Horváth – HEAR Studio
László Hortobágyi – Tharnox Studio
Zoltán Regenye Regi – HSB Mobile Studio (India)
Károly Liszkai – Studio RH
Tamás Zányi – Saint Audio
Károly Göllner – CPT Mures Mobile Studio (Romania)
Viktor Szabó – Budapest Music Center

literary sources
Theodore Duka: Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Körös Francis William Bain: An Incarnation of the Snow, The Substance of a Dream

consultants
Eszter Molnár, Caroline Bodóczky, Gábor Ferenczi

© & ℗ Tibor Szemző 2002-2023 all right seserved

The original English and Hungarian versions of the CSOMA KALEIDOSCOPE are both available.

Running time: 51 minutes

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

The screening is in English, which may affect your experience.

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DOME_014 TIBOR SZEMZŐ: CSOMA KALEIDOSCOPE (Hungarian)

In the kaleidoscope – and on this occasion the Sound Dome kaleidoscope acts in magical way – his music and the soundspace open up together uniquely to evoke the indescribable Himalayan environment in which the pilgrim-scientist Sandor Csoma lived out his days among the mountains.

Language: Hungarian

Both the visual and musical worlds of the Csoma Kaleidoscope reach back to Tibor Szemző's Arboretum Suite (2002) and his film The Guest of Life (2006). In the kaleidoscope – and on this occasion the Sound Dome kaleidoscope acts in magical way – his music and the soundspace open up together uniquely to evoke the indescribable Himalayan environment in which the pilgrim-scientist Sandor Csoma lived out his days among the mountains.

"To the scholars of his generation, Csoma was an obscure figure from Transylvania, abandoned and stateless among the Himalayan mountains, but from their peaks he cast the shadow of a giant across Central Asia."
W.W. Hunter

In this work, we hear the voice of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma delivering his personal account, originally written for a certain Captain Kennedy. In it he relates his travels and his aims after his detention by the British authorities on suspicion of espionage. Doctor Gerard, the British doctor who visits Csoma in his cell, also contributes as fragments of the Hindu world filter in through the kaleidoscope of Francis Bain's enchanting narrative. The source of the texts is the Csoma biography Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Körös / Kőrösi Csoma Sándor dolgozatai (1885) by Tivadar Duka. The intimate, personal narration, spoken from an eyewitness perspective, is embedded in and accompanied by instrumental and vocal music that is orchestrated for the unique tonal qualities of the kaleidoscope, meanwhile the images multiply in a kaleidoscopic fashion fully in harmony with the music. During the nineteen movements of the performance, the approach to Csoma is assembled and we the audience come closer to understanding what this ’adventure' must have been like from the inside, and to experiencing the incomparable experience of spaciousness.

 

staff
Tibor Szemző – director, music and text
Dániel Németh – visuals
Ákos Lovász – sound design
Vazul Mandli – curator

the film crew
István “Taikyo” Szaladják – photography
Gábor Roskó – paintings
Kása Papp, Bálint Kolozsváry - animations
Teri Losonci – editor
György Durst, Attila Bognár – producers

the musicians
The Gordian Knot Creative Music Lab
Zsombor Dudás – drums and percussions
Ildikó Fodor – soprano voice
Tamás Geröly – gardon
László Gőz – basstrumpet, sea shells, tillinkó
István Grencsó – tenor saxophone
Ernst Hirschberg – keyboards
Mihály Huszár – electric double bass, bass guitar
Szabolcs Keresteš – piano, celesta
László Kéringer – tenor voice
Zsigmond Lázár – violin
Éva Posvanecz – viola
Alois Samson – wind controller
Tibor Szemző – narrator, bassflute, 8mm-phone
T. Bali – electric guitar

Voces Aequales Ensemble
Zoltán Gavodi – countertenor voice
Csaba Gyulai – tenor voice
Zoltán Mizsei – baritone voice

Tomasini String Quartet
László Paulik, Erzsébet Rácz – violin
Éva Posvanecz – viola
Balázs Máté – cello

Lobsang Dhamchoe – chanting voice
Lama Lobsang Gedun – recitation

recording and sound design
Alois Samson – Fodderbasis
István Horváth – HEAR Studio
László Hortobágyi – Tharnox Studio
Zoltán Regenye Regi – HSB Mobile Studio (India)
Károly Liszkai – Studio RH
Tamás Zányi – Saint Audio
Károly Göllner – CPT Mures Mobile Studio (Romania)
Viktor Szabó – Budapest Music Center

literary sources
Theodore Duka: Life and Works of Alexander Csoma de Körös Francis William Bain: An Incarnation of the Snow, The Substance of a Dream

consultants
Eszter Molnár, Caroline Bodóczky, Gábor Ferenczi

© & ℗ Tibor Szemző 2002-2023 all right seserved

The original English and Hungarian versions of the CSOMA KALEIDOSCOPE are both available.

Running time: 51 minutes

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

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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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.

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

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DOME_015 EÖTVÖS PÉTER: TALE

Running time: 27 minutes

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

The screening is in Hungarian, which may affect your experience.

 

It was in 1968 that Péter Eötvös wrote his cult audio play Tale, one of the early works that earned him admission into the elite musical circles of the time. It also soon led to a life-long collaboration with Karlheinz Stockhausen, with the two making music together for days on end in the world’s first sound dome in Osaka.

Twelve and a half minutes in length, Tale was created from the motifs of 100 different Hungarian folk tales. The story compiled from all this text was narrated by the Kossuth Prize-winning actress Piroska Molnár, who also voiced the various characters, with the composer distorting her voice by speeding it up and slowing it down. From these recordings originally made in Budapest, Eötvös generated an electronic music composition in the studio of Radio Cologne, which was later presented for the first time in Darmstadt.

Now, 55 years after the piece’s conception, the undergraduate media design students at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME) have created, as part of their academic work and based on the composer’s instructions, visual material for it utilising different approaches. In the end, they came up with five different versions to be projected on the hemispherical screen, each of which will be shown in the Sound Dome as part of the Intermezzo Festival. It will be no surprise to see Molnár herself also appearing in this contemporary take on the piece.

 

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DOME_LIVE

 

The DOME_LIVE series of programs of the Hungarian House of Music dedicates an evening every month to present new audiovisual performances. During the evenings, the audience can see live instrumental or electroacoustic concerts, usually supplemented with visual material, or a premiere screening of the content produced here.

SOUND DOME OPENING HOURS
 

Monday   closed (and closed on the first Tuesday and Wednesday of each month)

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday  10 AM to 6 PM

Closing of the ticket office and last screening: 5.30 PM

Friday  10 AM to 8 PM

Closing of the ticket office and last screening: 7.30 PM

 

ARRIVAL

We can't deviate from the Hangman screening order, so if the group is 10-15 minutes late, unfortunately we can't let it in. Please take this into account and thank you for your understanding.

 

WARDROBE

The use of the cloakroom is free of charge and is obligatory for visiting exhibitions and events. Luggage, backpacks of any size, umbrella and bag are mandatory in the locker room. The exhibition and screening room will close at 6pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, with ticketing and admission closed at 5:30 p.m. Please leave the area when the closing colleagues show up and visit the cloakroom by 18:00 at the latest if necessary.

During the summer, the cloakroom is not open, you can use the lockers on level -1 for your luggage.

 

PARKING

With the ticket redeemed online, the first two hours of parking in the Museum Underground Garage are free on the day of the visit. Please validate your parking tickets at the information desk of the House of Music Hungary.

Warning of the risk of photosensitivity attacks

A small percentage of people may experience seizures due to certain visual images, including flashing lights and patterns that appear as part of the show.