Kati Szvorák has been following her own independent way in a folk singer's career for almost twenty years now. Winner at several international contests, she owns a great variety of precious and distinguishing titles. Not being the representative of large move-ments, she is a beloved and always welcome guest of small communities in Hungary, and in many foreign countries as well. During the past 15 years she has given more than 2000 concerts in 27 countries on three continents. Her twentythird independent production, a CD entitled Éneklõ Egyház and containing religion hymns, appeared a few months ago.

Life mosaic

Born in Losonc /Lucenec/
Childhood years in the fabulous folktale lands of the Ipoly region
Playing the violin, singing modern light music, folk dance
Twice found the best at Slovakian Hungarians' Folk Song Competition
ELTE University, Budapest, specializing in Hungarian and Library Science
Eötvös College
Young Master of Folk Art (1980)
First Prizes "Röpülj páva" folk singing competition (1981)
Lajtha Memorial Contest (1988)
Employed as soloist of Honvéd Ensemble (1983 - 2005)
Soros grant (1990-92)
Honorary citizen of the town Fülek-Filakovo (1996) and of the village Pinc-Pinciná (2006)
Liszt prize (2000)
Hungaroton prize (2001)
Kodály prize (2002)
Bartók Memorial prize (2007)
More than two thousand concerts in 30 countries of three continents
Twentythree individual recordings
 
Reminiscences
 
folk song collecting trips
concerts in Bavarian "underground" pubs
in Finnish and Occitan churches
in Skandinavian jazz clubs
in Cervantes's native land
in Norwegian nursery schools
thousands Chinese people
at a French cattle-market
in German hospitals and French old peoples homes
through Italian nights
singing and shooting in Bekaa-valley
Sevilla EXPO
"Szózat" which was sung at the Inauguration of the Hungarian president
Italian pizzerias
performances in Hungarian Cultural Institutes abroad (Helsinki,Sofia,Paris,Prague,Moskva etc.)
singing in a András Schiff's TV show
festivals (Mundus Cantat, Santa Cruz, Bonn, Rudolstadt, Fete de la viele, Jerez de la Frontiera Bath, Edinburgh etc.)
Liszt and Bartók programmes on ORF and Austrian schools
"Csángó" song accompanied by a Polish group
Chinese song accompanied by a Chinese group
antiseptic studios
„Water-concert” in Kyoto
making music in streets and theatres
lead role in "Hungarian Song" & "Betlehems star" rock oratories
singing for German nuns who never to speak swore
one-month tour in US
songs at the Parlament of Sao Paolo and at the National Radio
Kurtag Festival in Bavaria
songs presented to the people of Salvador
„Monarchia-concert” in Vienna Music Academy
Jewish festivals in Italy with Odessa Klezmer Band
Concerts in the barns of Washington
Wiener Advent  with Herz-Kestranek
 television and radio recordings, sometimes too many VIP occasions with obligatorily charming smiles


Press
 
Kati Szvorák possesses the extraordinary talent of a remarkable musician whose repertoire embodies several histories of cultural change and multicultural interaction in Eastern Europe.She is at once a musician's musician and a scholar's musician, but most remarkable of all, she communicates the message behind her music with a gentleness and strength that resonates audienees of all kinds…Her songs build bridges, between tha past and present, and between different ethnic folk music…
(Philip V. Bohlman Professor of Music- Chicago)


Multi award-winning Kati Szvorák's virtuoso group plays traditional folk, jazz and world music, employing classical training and 20 original folk instruments…"beautiful material…sensitive arrangements…pretty wonderful stuff…"
(Edinburgh festival guide)


She must be a very happy person, since her "golden" voice is faithfully accompanied by "silver" music.
(József Utassy poet)


A fine sense of variety prevents her style from becoming rigid, enabling her to adapt to the actual style of the accompaniment...Kati Szvorák, with her wonderful voice, produces a highly artistic quality, characterized by a delightful way of singing, always clearly pronounced words, and fine and delicate flourishes in her performance…
(Katalin Fittler music critic)


At the beginning, there was someone, a very special performer, Erzsi Palotai who, very kindly, called her colleague, the young singer "the little sister of sunshine". Katalin Szvorák still deserves that name…
(András Rajk music critic)


She has worked seriously, resolutely and with enthusiasm, and all this is based - I am happy to say - on her promising, quickly maturing talent. She does not only have a sense for the folk music styles but renders their technique with full empathy. Desptite the education given to her voice, it still remains an authentically folk song voice both in its powerful and tempered modalitie. I wish her succes in what she considers her mission: to associate the art of singing folk songs with research and study, and to create a school thereby: this is what Kodály would be happy to see fulfilled.
(Benjámin Rajeczky musicologist)


Katalin Szvorák would not be so well known as she is today if she had not done anything but producing "standard" folk song performance. She always wanted to give more than that to her audience…
(András Bankó journalist)


Katalin Szvorák is another singer in Marta Sebestyén class. But it is Katalin's voice that's the best instrument here, wether singing sweetly on a tender ballad or using that hard Balkan edge. Possibly most stunning of all is the passage where, in the midst of a medley of songs just acccompained by solo duda ( bagpipe), she suddenly starts imitating the sound of the instrument itself with her vocal decorations. Neck hairs promptly stand up and salute! Pretty Wonderful stuff!
(Folk Roots)


...Szvorak's schooled but earthy voice dovetails with fiddles, a gutty-sounding of the loud, and a throat singing herdsman of the reed family, whose charges include that goad/bagpipe hybrid the duda, in celebration of spring, love and the musical properties of the jew's harp. Authentic, affecting and cheery folk music from a quartet which proves that music and humour know few language barriers...
(The Herald)


She's a remarkable woman with a tradition of going into the field and collecting folk songs of the people...
(Grand Rapid Press)


Kati Szvorák is a splendid serene-voiced singer, with that special Hungarian stillnes.
(Folk Roots)


Kati Szvorák has devoted herself to the preservation of traditional ways of life that form "bedrock" of Eastern European societies. Her performance is enhanced by the Hungarian folksongs she has gathered in Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary from the villagers who still remember them. This diverse music embraces many topics and moods...
(Folk Fire)


...the dancers were energized by the lively accompaniments of Kõfaragók and the outgoing personality of Szvorak. Gifted with a warm and earthy voice... Even without knowledge of the exts, however, listeners were transported to another time and place by Szvorak's expressive singing, which was embellished with microtonal inflections....
(Cleveland - The plain dealer)


Folk singer Kati Szvorak is known as "the little sister of sunshine" in her native Hungary. But to Richard Graber, she is "like a little angel"... Last weekend, Szvorak did a remarkable bagpipe imitation over the phone from Grand Rapids..." I was told she is the best singer in Hungary," Feurzeig said."She has a strong voice with a very special character. It's very vibrant, bright, colorful and alive...
(The Lauthorn)


Kati Szvorák is a Hungarian singer having live in shadow of her better-known colleague Márta Sebestyén…in fact, their voices are heard combined on the recent Deep Forest album…contains some beatiful material in sensitive arrangements…
(Folk Roots)


Anyone who remembers the impact of Marta Sebestyen and Muzsikas's early visits here will want to check out their fellow Hungarian Kati Szvorak and her group, the Water Carriers, in this midnight splash through the Danube's folklore.
Although broadly similar to Muzsikas, this quartet's music is slightly more rustic and rougher hewn as Szvorak's schooled but earthy voice dovetails with fiddles, a gutty-sounding cousin of the loud, and a throat singing herdsman of the reed family, whose charges include that goat/bagpipe hybrid, the duda, in celebration of spring, love and the musical properties of the jew's harp. Authentic, affecting and cheery folk music from a quartet which proves that music and humour know few language barriers.
(Rob Adams -The Herald)

 

 

Czigány György

 

Let Us Rejoice!

The richest national traditions of nearly every nation are connected with Christmas. Kati Szvorák‘s unique album also sings of this celebration. On it shared Christmas songs of Middle Europe are sung in ten languages, authentically and with conviction. Kati Szvorák, a one-time Slovak-Hungarian, later a singer of her native land with a deliberately broadened scope, was awarded the Liszt Prize in the Holy Year. She is generally considered to be one of the singers most expert at rendering this concept. The singer‘s fourteenth solo recording declares once more our Europeanness...  the mutual dependence of peoples in the region and the desire to live peacefully side by side. She brings out wonderfully the interactions, which pop up like a hidden stream in the Christmas song-world of the peoples of Middle Europe, and also the recognizable structures of western music. Naturally, as the editor, Szvorák could not aspire to totality... there is also a kind of inequality, due to her being Hungarian, which is lovingly forgivable. (It is interesting to note, by the way, that Budapest‘s Csepel Island is the geographical centre of Europe...  What we have here is a selection and a gift. Let‘ s listen with love, similar to that joy we   as members of the Monarchia Orchestra   felt while making music together with our friends.With peace and tranquillity, we invite you all to our Christmas table laid with common songs.

 

Dr.Rudolf Pietsch

Institut für Volkmusikforschung

Universitat für Musik

und darstellende Kunst – Wien

 

 

Dr. Bernard Garaj

Univerzita Konstantina Filozofa – Nitra

Ústav hudobnej vedy - Bratislava.

 

 

Migration of songs was the title of Kati’s first recording I was the musical producer of. The present disc is similarly a migration of songs, self-forgotten singing in the Carpathian Basin, a sisterly visit to different families of Hungarian melodies. I have long shared my studio-related experience with performers of folk music I hold in great esteem so that their recording should not only be heard but resound, fill the place as well. In the course of working together I have come to know not only Kati’s ringing voice but the source of this voice as well, a human character void of affectedness. It has not worn off as time went by, on the contrary. Although I have heard the remark that she is the singing-bird of the poor, I think it is a stupidity. She is Kati Szvorák of those rich in spirit.

(Levente Szörényi)

composer

 

Preface by Archbishop Péter Erdõ, Cardinal Primate of Hungary

Music is a fundamental human experience. Every person carries within him the rhythm of the heartbeat. Music touches the spirit and elevates the heart to God, who became a man on earth and whose heart beats for us. Jesus fulfilled the work of redemption through his suffering, death and the mysteries of his resurrection and ascension at Easter. Continuation of Christ’s redeeming work is carried out mainly through the liturgy. The sacred music and its texts are devoted to the holy liturgy - a display of the liturgy’s story of Salvation in prayer and song. The liturgy recalls all of the events from the story of Salvation, and this is the source of its amazing richness.

The Church’s musical tradition is a treasure in the lives of all peoples. The hymns on this recording are selections from a newer, reformative Hungarian Catholic hymnal entitled, ’Éneklõ Egyház’ (Budapest, 1986), which is the result of several decades of serious, comprehensive expert preparation. It merges three main points of view. First, according to the ancient Roman order and in compliance with the 2nd Vatican Council’s Liturgical Constitution; all liturgical themes (above all, those related to the holy mass) are to be sung to Gregorian melody - the Church’s own ancient, highly refined music. Secondly, it also puts into song a few characteristic themes of particular importance from the Church’s own unique and valuable works from the Middle Ages – specifically from Hungary’s Esztergom Gregorian tradition and ritual. And finally, there is an ample selection of folk hymns, which in addition to being old Christian treasures from the hymnody of the Middle Ages, are also examples of an ancient layer of Hungarian folk hymns - works from the hymnals of the 16th and 17th centuries.

 

These greatly valued hymns of substantial theological content come straight from the liturgical texts and are melodies which in regard to rhythm, melodic turns and ornamentation have ripened into a ’Hungarianness’ and have become strongly rooted in the spirit of the Hungarian people. The original folk versions of the melodies are found in Eneklõ Egyház and on this recording; they are masterpieces that have been brought to light by virtue of Zoltán Kodály’s direction and extensive collection work done in Hungary over the last decades. The origin of these uplifing folk hymns embraces the entire Hungarian language area. Gregorian chant and secular Hungarian folk song has had a great influence on the development of these hymns.

 

The authentic atmosphere of the hymns heard on this CD is evoked by accompaniment on folk instruments. According to the ancient religious teaching of Pope Saint Pious the10th, liturgical song should combine three basic characteristics, they must be: sacred, artistic and universal. To that end, we offer singer Katalin Szvorák’s greatly inspired performance of these religious hymns from the Hungarian language area, with masterful accompaniment on a variety of instruments.

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