Tibor Szemző is one of Hungary’s most important contemporary composers, influenced by the avant-garde as well as ambient and minimalist music. His multi-directional interest has oriented him towards the borderlands of different genres. Throughout his rich career, he has worked with many formations and artists worldwide. He is a versatile artist and, in addition to his compositions, his performances are significant, as well as his films and installations. He is passionate about the fusion of the human voice and instrumental music with the moving image, and his music is a narrative and a music-filmic fabric composed of separate layers. This layering is a true trademark of the composer.
http://szemzo.org
https://www.facebook.com/Szemzoe
https://tiborszemzo.bandcamp.com

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Program:
WHAT THERE IS! (Géza Ottlik)
Invisible Story (Béla Hamvas)

• intermission -
  Tractatus (L. Wittgenstein)

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I.
WHAT THERE IS!
Director and music: Tibor Szemző
Narrator: Géza Ottlik
Sound: László Hortobágyi
Producer: György Durst
Kép-Árnyék Bt. 2005
More, more, sweet Uncle Georgie!
Gábor Medve says you bellowed: the tension of the air furiously flowing into your lungs was painful. And the totally unknown place you’ve ended up in, with which you have nothing to do as a spectator. The free picture show has started, and you get to play a role in it. The two things are not consistent.
What do you see! Well, Benedek Bóth’s a painter, so as a spectator this way, step by step, that’s how he pieces things together; Bed, window, room, mother, apartment, stairwell, street, bridge, square, Danube bank— that’s what there is.

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II.
Invisible Story
an essayfilm
Director, composer, narrator: Tibor Szemző
Production: Durst György
Text: Hamvas Béla
Editing: Andreas Schlichthuber
Invisible Story by Béla Hamvas is an enthrallingly precise work of writing: an essay in terms of form, though >perhaps needless to say< that precision is not inspired by science but poetry. And the essayist, as Hamvas himself aptly says, proceeds in an unknown country, „alone, rudderless, on the open sea.”
And what does it feel like to be a school student visiting the DDR on an exchange program in 1967? It would be hard to put into words, almost impossible, I would barely be able to evoke it, even though to this day I still carry in my nose the smell of springy linoleum (Tibor Szemző).

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III.
Tractatus +
Concert by Tibor Szemző
Texts: Ludwig Wittgenstein
Tractatus is a quiet, sombre and thoughtful work, which stands in a category by itself. It could be termed “minimalist” or even “ambient” but neither one of these categorizations does it articularly appropriate justice. It is a soundwork, which teases the auditory senses from a distance and draws the listener into its own engaging world. I don’t believe that I ever heard a work, which sounds quite like this. Engrossing and hypnotic (Chris Meloche - Scene Magazine 1996, https://www.allmusic.com/album/tractatus-mw0000761173).