"When Down…" Grencsó, Dukay, Holló, Kalafszky

• 1 Daybreake 05:07
• 2 Warning! 02:23
• 3 Out of space 01:29
• 4 "When I had journeyed half of our life’s way" 03:49
• 5 Hardly at all 04:21
• 6 A faded inscription under the ivy 03:29
• 7 Mossy 02:54
• 8 A faded inscription under the ivy – variation 04:15
• 9 Warning! – variation 03:20
• 10 Brother Bunyan 03:39
• 11 When the shadows surround you 01:46
• 12 "When I had journeyed half of our life’s way" – variation 03:24
• 13 Seven springs 03:54
• 14 Touch 01:29
• 15 Anomaly 00:44
• 16 Silhouette 03:27
• 17 The opening gate 04:03
• Total Runtime 53:33

Info for "When Down…"

Etymologically speaking, the word 'improvisation' is rooted in the Latin term 'provisio', which has several different meanings, ranging from "foresight” to "caution”. Improvisation is no less than facing something unforeseeable without fear. Ulysses bound to the mast waiting to hear the sirens’ song. However, one can improvise in many different ways, also with caution and a concept. While I was listening to this marvellous album recorded by four exceptionally creative musicians in a sound studio with the explicit purpose of improvisation, the main question that arose in my mind was if it was a crucial factor that the music we listen to was born of the moment or was composed previously." Gergely Fazekas, musicologist

István Grencsó, woodwinds
Barnabás Dukay, Klavins Una Corda M189
Aurél Holló, percussion
Adriána Kalafszky, soprano

István Grencsó
(1956), saxophonist and flutist, is one of the outstanding figures of Hungarian avant-garde jazz. His career began in 1979 with the founding of the Masina Jazz Group, and he became more widely known in the 1980s as a partner of György Szabados. In 1984, he founded the Collective, which has been his number one band ever since. With this ever-changing formation, he has released several albums. Grencsó's repertoire is extremely varied, and he is considered a master of formal changes. In addition to his improvisational experiments, he has covered numerous jazz standards, played pop, rock and ethno music independently of current fashion trends, reinterpreted Hungarian dance music and chansons from the 1960s, and composed suites that lean towards classical music. He has performed and recorded with Paul Termos, Peter Kowald, Tobias Delius, Peter Brötzman and the Russian Noise Orchestra, among others.

Barnabás Dukay
(1950) studied composition at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music with Rezső Sugár (1969-1974), receiving his diploma as a composer and music theory teacher in 1976. He was member of the New Music Studio from 1970 to 1990 where he participated as a keyboard and percussion player and conductor in performances of works by contemporary Hungarian and foreign composers. He taught solfege and music theory at the Béla Bartók Conservatory from 1974 to 1991, then became a professor at the Department of Musical Theory of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. He was honoured with the Erkel Prize in 2000 and with the Bartók-Pásztory Award in 2007.

Aurél Holló
Master percussionist Aurél Holló is one of the most versatile artists on the Hungarian music scene. He studied classical percussion and composition at the Academy of Music in Budapest. While at college, he played percussion in a number of contemporary music ensembles and then joined Tea, a jazz fusion group that consisted of young, up-and-coming musicians in 1988. Tea soon gained recognition in Central Europe as a superb local follower of fusion greats Spyro Gyra and Mezzoforte. From 1991 Aurél has been a member of the world-famous classical percussion group Amadinda. He is a teacher of classical percussion at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Music in Budapest. He also scored music for animated films, prepared symphony orchestra arrangements for the elite of Hungary's pop scene. He maintains his musical balance by being an active musician in a number of different styles. His compositions for percussion ensemble earned him a reputation well beyond his home country.

Adriána Kalafszky
graduated from the Academy of Music in Budapest with a Master's degree in oratorio and song, and then pursued postgraduate studies in historical singing at the University of Leipzig, Department of Early Music. She has performed at all the major early music festivals in Leipzig, and in 2015 she made her debut as Venus in a performance of John Blow's opera Venus and Adonis at the Alte Musik Fest. In 2018, she studied with world-renowned soprano Nancy Argenta at the opera studio of the Victoria Conservatory of Music in Canada. Since 2014, she has been a regular performer with the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra conducted by György Vashegyi, in concert halls in Hungary and at festivals abroad.

Booklet for "When Down…"