L A D I E S    A N D    G E N T L E M E N ,

Everybody needs heroes, children and adults alike – after all, we all want to do good, to help or to create something long-lasting for our successors to build upon. A hero possesses something of the treasure we all seek. The fact that he shares his values with his fellow human beings instead of saving it all for himself bespeaks his greatness.

My hero is Georges Cziffra. He shines above my life and career like a guiding star. His spiritual legacy, his astounding musical talent, his integrity, and his selfless desire to help young musicians made him a legend in his lifetime. The Georges Cziffra Festival is aiming to continue all that Georges Cziffra created and dreamed of in France: a series of concerts, master classes, musical competition and an opportunity for young performers to make themselves known to the audience.

I inaugurate the Festival in 2016 in the hope that you will receive it graciously and with as much pleasure as it is offered to you by all of the participants and organisers.

JÁNOS BALÁZS

Pianist, Liszt Prize and Junior Prima Prize awardee,
founder and art director of the Georges Cziffra Festival

MISSION

Georges Cziffra’s original idea was that his son, Georges Cziffra Jr., himself an accomplished pianist and conductor, would carry on with the Music Festival and Cziffra Foundation he, the father stared in France. However, Georges Cziffra lost his son young in tragic circumstances and with this the musical strain died out in the family.

The Szamos Cziffra cake

Initially he featured in the Hungarian state files as a dissident with a prison record. After the change of the political system his rehabilitation was somehow never opportune. In Hungary, for a long time there was no information at all about Georges Cziffra’s success abroad or on his dedicated patronage of young musicians at the outset of their careers. Neither the world of music nor the state felt something should be done to cultivate Cziffra’s work, yet young generations badly need an example to follow; heroes who trusted their own talent with perseverance and integrity, proudly and undaunted. Liszt Prize and Junior Prima Prize awardee pianist János Balázs considers Georges Cziffra his hero as a musician and as a person. He has had first-hand experience of how music and Cziffra’s career helped him first in respect of music, then in human and moral issues as well. He wishes to convey Cziffra’s “message” to everybody who feels they possess something that is not for sale and are capable of showing it to the world. To achieve this mission we launch a festival named after Georges Cziffra with the intent of presenting the Master’s career and lifetime work.