Balázs Kecskés D.
Balázs Kecskés D. is a Budapest-based composer, who writes music that calls to listeners’ imaginations offering them the sound space to experience the collision of multiple worlds. His influences range from St Augustine to Friedrich Nietzsche, from Franz Schubert to Katy Perry, and from J. S. Bach to Meredith Monk. His oratorio, Komm has been described as having a “unique profane spirituality, through which the audience can … be part of a truly sacred experience” (Bartók Radio, New Music Journal). Komm will be presented at the 67th International Rostrum of Composers in October 2021. Upcoming projects will include a commission from the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, and a viola concerto for Máté Szűcs.
His works have been premiered by ensembles such as the Estonian Collegium Musicale Chamber Choir, the U.S.-based Garth Newel Piano Quartet, the Hungarian Radio Orchestra and Choir and the Budapest String Orchestra. Balázs’s compositions have been performed in Düsseldorf, Riga, London, Tbilisi, and Hot Springs, Virginia.
One of only two composers selected to be mentored in the Peter Eötvös Foundation, Balázs this year will be writing music for groups such as Ars Nova Ensemble, France and the Danubia Orchestra Óbuda, Hungary. Balázs won the Istvánffy Benedek Award of the Hungarian Composers’ Union in 2020 and 2019. This award is given annually to an outstanding composer under 40.
As a lecturer at the Composition Department of the Liszt Academy of Music, Balázs teaches baroque and Viennese classical techniques and contemporary music analysis. Through his teaching activity he maintains a living connection with the classical repertoire, while exploring the latest in contemporary techniques together with his students. Understanding music in its broader cultural contexts, Balázs writes essays on everything from electronics and AI in classical music to comparing pop songs to Schubert Lieder.
He holds degrees from the Liszt Academy of Music where he studied with János Vajda, and spent a semester at the Luigi Cherubini Music as a student of Paolo Furlani.