Bach festival to hold 150 free concerts in 7 countries

The concerts will be held in various venues from children’s hospitals to the Royal Palace in Godollo, in Hungary, while venues outside Hungary include those in Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria and Slovakia, festival director Zalan Laszlo Kovacs told a press conference held in Budapest’s Erkel Theatre. One-third of the concerts will be held in neighbouring countries, he said.

The festival will be held for the eighth time this year, around the anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s birth on March 21, he said.

“The festival was held mostly online in the past two years due to the coronavirus pandemic, but still drew 200,000 people in 2021 alone,” he said.

Performers include the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Danubia Orchestra, the MAV Symphony Orchestra, the National Choir, the orchestra and choir of the Budapest Opera, as well as conductor Adam Medveczky, soprano Katalin Pitti and cellist Ditta Rohmann, among others, he said.

Events will run until the end of the year, Kovacs said.