Welcome to the 2026 St. Gellért Music Festival

It gives me great pleasure to welcome the music lovers of Szeged to the 2026 St. Gellért Music Festival.

Allow me to highlight some of the unique features of this year’s festival.

We will open the festival with the St. Gellért Baroque Players performing Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s monumental Stabat Mater. This concert will mark the festival debut of internationally acclaimed Szeged soprano Zsuzsi Tóth. Joining her will be the young Korean countertenor Yongbeom Kwon, who touched audiences’ hearts with his deeply expressive singing at last year’s festival and is now rapidly establishing himself on the major concert stages of Europe.

We are also delighted to welcome back the outstanding violinist Ziyu He, whose dazzling performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto captivated our audience last year. This season he returns with Beethoven’s magnificent Violin Concerto—a performance that promises to be one of the festival’s highlights.

For a change of musical atmosphere, we are pleased to present a symphonic wind concert by the Military Band of Hódmezővásárhely, featuring works by Brahms, Liszt, and Elgar.

No music festival in Szeged would be complete without the participation of distinguished artists from our own city. We are therefore especially proud to present Péter Zoltán, principal clarinetist of the Szeged Symphony Orchestra, together with the celebrated Szeged pianist Soma Balázs-Piri. They will be joined by the internationally acclaimed cellist Lila, creating a remarkable chamber music collaboration.

The festival’s closing orchestral concert will feature the world premiere of the newly reconstructed version of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Winds and Orchestra, a work whose original score was partially lost during the nineteenth century. The program will also include one of Mozart’s most beloved piano concertos, the Piano Concerto in A major, K. 488, performed by the distinguished Hungarian pianist Gergely Bogányi.

We sincerely hope that many music lovers from Szeged and beyond will join us to experience these magnificent masterpieces together with our exceptional guest artists.

I look forward to welcoming you to another unforgettable St. Gellért Music Festival.