This year, the 3rd Mihály Mőcsényi Conference on Garden Art and Garden History in Fertőd will be dedicated to the relationship between garden art and music. The event, which will take place from 29 September to 1 October, will include discussions for professionals, and also activities for the general public interested in garden heritage and music.
The exploration of the relationship between garden art and music will be the theme of this year’s Mihály Mőcsényi Conference on Garden Art and Garden History. The symposium will take place in Eszterháza on 29-30 September and 1 October in the Esterházy Castle and Garden, which was also home to Joseph Haydn, the father of musical classicism, for almost three decades. The conference will address Hungarian and international experts in landscape architecture, heritage conservation, music and cultural tourism, providing a scientific overview and an insight into current trends of interest from the aspects of garden heritage. The symposium will be linked online with international speakers, who will provide participants with an insight into the role of music in the development of English and Italian historic gardens in the past and present, and other interesting topics. Speakers include Gillian Mawrey, editor-in-chief of the Historic Gardens Review, and Stefano Trevisi, artistic director of the programme Musica Antica in Casa Cozzi at Benetton Foundation. The Hungarian speakers will recall the iconic figures in music in relation to the history of Hungarian gardens, and also talk about their relationships to gardens through their own careers. Thus, in addition to garden historians, the conference speakers include Klára Kolonits, Kossuth Prize-winning opera singer, private singer of the Hungarian State Opera House and perpetual member of the Company of Immortals, and Gábor Zoboki, Kossuth and Ybl Prize-winning Hungarian architect and university professor, who will this time be speaking at the conference as President of the Richard Wagner Society. Ádám Bősze, music historian and presenter of Radio Bartók, will talk to the audience about the special relationship of the Romantic master Mendelssohn to his garden.
The conference will be accompanied by a special musical programme: a performance by Adriána Kalafszky and the Savaria Baroque Orchestra will give an insight into a special branch of Baroque culture, Baroque gestures, while Gábor Karcis, a light painter, will bring his work inspired by Baroque music to life using the plants of the Esterházy manor garden. Schoolchildren will be able to learn about music and garden art through a free, organised educational programme. The conference will be accompanied by a programme open to the general public: on Saturday morning, 1 October, a free family event will be organised, with a lecture by Ádám Bősze and programmes by music teachers to introduce children and adults to the world of gardens and music. Visitors will also be able to see a selection of botanically themed works by graphic artist Rita Kesselyák and a poster exhibition of research carried out by landscape architecture students this spring.
The conference is organised by the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation, co-organised by the Eszterháza Cultural, Research and Festival Centre Non-Profit Ltd. and the Institute of Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning and Garden Art at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, in cooperation with the Imre Ormos Foundation, the Association of Hungarian Landscape Architects and the Hungarian National Committee of ICOMOS.
The participation of members of the Hungarian Chamber of Architects is awarded with points.
