According to artistic director and festival director Gábor Hollerung, Zemplén Festival is perhaps the most diverse arts festival in Hungary, with an extremely wide range of styles and genres, from special programs to popular performances. Festival visitors can experience classical music concerts, jazz, folk music, world music, chamber performances, dance, and children’s programs.
However, the festival is not only about art, it is primarily about getting to know each other: those who visit the picturesque little villages of the region can not only take part in a captivating concert, but also get to know the monuments, customs and gastronomy of the settlement and the region. In the little villages, concerts also welcome visitors, where they can taste local dishes, wine and cakes. This year's festival awaits visitors in around 40 locations, in around 20 settlements, with more than 500 artists.
Culture and Tourism
In addition to diversity, another important driving force of the festival is the relationship between tourism and culture. The organizers want to serve the interconnection, mutual reinforcement and assistance of these two areas, so they place great emphasis on cooperation with local tourism offices and organizations. Until then, uncertainty still surrounds last year's festival.
Launch an unprecedented collaboration
In the region: All the settlements participating in the festival feel the importance of being part of this important national art festival, and they support it to the best of their ability.
According to the organizers' announcement, this year the festival will be one day longer than usual, due to the long weekend of August 20, the event may end on Monday 19. At the closing ceremony, former chamber orchestra conductor Ferenc Liszt and festival founder János Rölla, who passed away last year, paid tribute.
Jazz and World Music
The festival opens with a concert by the Budafoki Dohnányi Orchestra, the festival’s resident ensemble, on August 9, 2024, in Sárospatak, with works by Gershwin, Leo Wenner and Stravinsky. The Budafoki Dohnányi Orchestra is represented in the series with numerous concerts and compositions: you can also hear them in Sárospatak, Sátoraljaújhely and Szerencs. The BDZ Chamber Workshop, whose artistic director was Szüts Apor, which made its debut with great success last year, will give a concert in Pálháza. The main purpose of the chamber orchestra is
Gives you an insightful chamber orchestra perspective into the stars of music history.
The festival programme also includes musical performances such as a concert by the MYNK Quartet and Omar Bashir, where melodies played by the oud (Arabic lute), native to the Middle East, meet European instruments and musical culture. Those interested in jazz and world music can listen to the Hungarian Rhapsody Project by Balint Pársonyi, which presents famous Hungarian melodies under the guise of world music, while the Kálmán Balogh Gypsy Band Cimbalom plays jazz, flamenco, swing and ragtime, combining klezmer and Roma music in a unique way. There will also be Zoltán Mujahid and Group'n'Swing, the Benko Dixieland Band, the Bohém Ragtime Jazz Band and the Budapest Klezmer Band.
Amazing panorama
This year the festival is expanding with a number of promising and picturesque locations: for example, the Fay Castle Park in Gollup, where visitors are welcomed by a picturesque water stage, or the open-air theatre in Veriz, which
At the foot of the castle, you are tempted by a stunning panoramic view of Zemplén.
After many years, the festival returns to Bodrogköz, to Kinzlów, where, in addition to the concert, the iconostasis of the Greek Catholic Church, unique in all of Europe, is worth seeing. The new old venue is Bodrogkeresztúr, where the thousand-year-old renovated Catholic Church will host the concert. There is also a new venue, the cozy terrace of Andrássy Kúria in Tarcal.
Of course, those interested can also visit the famous sites, there will again be a concert on the scenic terrace of the Újhuta Castle Hotel, a one-day program in Tolcsva and Mád, but it will also be worth visiting Hercegkút, Mikóháza, Taktaharkány or the Museum of the Hungarian Language.
The festival's popular evening programme in Sárospatak is the evening jazz series,
Artists such as Malik Andy Solstice, Reeves Richard Trio, Canaro Zenicar and Sabzon Orsi will take the stage.
It is organized for Tokaj wine lovers. Concert with wine-A series, where visitors can taste the wines of Patricius Borház, Disznókő winery, Tokaj-Oremus, and their official wine supplier, Grand Tokaj, sometimes in the wine cellar, sometimes with a panoramic view, sometimes in a rural setting, but always with pleasant music.
