Liszt Academy of Music
Art Nouveau concert hall and conservatoire of 1907, with a restored Grand Hall and guided tours.
The Academy of Music was founded in 1875 with Ferenc Liszt as its first president, and moved into its present building on Liszt Ferenc Square in 1907. Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl designed it in an Art Nouveau idiom, with a bronze seated Liszt by Alajos Stróbl above the entrance, a foyer lined with Zsolnay ceramics and gilded ironwork, and a mural cycle by Aladár Körösfoi-Kriesch. The Grand Hall seats around a thousand and is known for its acoustics.
The institution remains a university as well as a concert venue, and its alumni and teachers include Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernő Dohnányi and Georg Solti. A reconstruction between 2011 and 2013 restored the decorative schemes, improved the technical systems and reopened the smaller hall, now named after Solti. The concert centre programmes orchestral, chamber, jazz and folk series alongside student performances. Building tours take in the foyers, the staircases and the Grand Hall when rehearsals allow.
Highlights
- Grand Hall of about 1,000 seats, noted for its acoustics
- Art Nouveau foyer with Zsolnay ceramics and gilded ironwork
- Seated bronze of Ferenc Liszt by Alajos Stróbl on the facade
- Guided tours end with a short recital by a student
