Fonó Zenekar, Pál Eszter, Muzicka (SK): Felföldi utakon

On this occasion the House of Music Hungary's traditional Hungarian folk music series entitled Landscapes and their Music focuses on the former Hungarian Highlands, now a part of Slovakia. Gergely Agócs and his ensemble, the Fonó Band, are the hosts of the evening entitled "On Highland Roads", with their guests the singer, Eszter Pál, and the Bratislava-based Muzička Band, pioneers of the Slovakian dance house movement.

Gergely Agócs sums up the essence of the evening:

"In the summer of 1985, as a high school student, I went on my first folk music collecting trip. I went to Füleksávoly, 5 kilometres from the town of Fülek, where I lived at the time. I went on foot, equipped with a borrowed tape recorder and a cassette recorder. The songs I recorded on my first collecting trip, their simple, unadulterated performance, the warm welcome and, in general, the magical atmosphere of collecting, set the main direction of my later interest and professional orientation. I chose folk music collecting as my vocation. My first collections recorded the vocal tradition of the villages around Fülek, but my attention also extended to instrumental music folklore. In addition to the recordings of songs, thanks to the kindness of the shepherds in the area, the growing number of loan tapes soon included tárogató and flute playing, and within a year my collection included recordings by professional gypsy musicians.

By the 1990s, my collections had expanded to cover the whole of the Hungarian-inhabited regions of Slovakia, but my interest had also expanded to include Slovak, Gypsy and later Ruthenian, German, Croatian and Goral music folklore. Today, my private collection of folk music contains music folklore data from more than 180 settlements in Slovakia. In the production "On Highland Roads", I would like to present the folk music landscape of this region, based largely on my folk music recordings of the last 37 years. I am delighted that, in addition to members of my own company, the Fonó Band, the concert will feature one of the pioneers of the Slovak dance house movement, the Bratislava-based Muzička Band, and the singer Eszter Pál, who is of Transcarpathian origin."