On 28 May, the 100th anniversary of György Ligeti's birth, the composer's music was heard in concert halls all over the world - in cities with which his life was closely linked, such as Budapest, Vienna, and Hamburg, as well as in faraway places like Tokyo and Mexico City.
In many places, György Ligeti was the focus of attention: at the Philharmonie Köln, Whitsunday started with a Ligeti children's concert, followed by an afternoon chamber concert with pianist Tamara Stefanovich and others, and an evening with the Gürzenich Orchestra Köln under Matthias Pintscher, at which Tabea Zimmermann interpreted the Sonata for Viola Solo dedicated to her.
At the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, concerts with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, pianist Florian Heinisch, the Noah Quartet, pianist Anton Gerzenberg and with the Amaryllis Quartet are on the programme around the birthday.
At the Moers Festival over the Whitsun weekend, a wide variety of musicians encountered Ligeti's music in a creative way as part of a festival focus, including his son Lukas Ligeti.
The Klangforum Wien under Peter Rundel at the Prague Spring Festival, the London Sinfonietta, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra also celebrated Ligeti's music on 28 May and beyond. A festival is dedicated to him in his birthplace Tarnaveni and in Cluj, where he went to school.
The concerts to mark the 100th anniversary are not limited to Europe: A Ligeti Festival took place at the Seoul Arts Center, at Toppan Hall in Tokyo the motto in two concerts was "Thank you György Ligeti", and in Mexico City the Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México played Ligeti's Melodien.
