Signs, Games, Messages. An Exhibition to Celebrate György Kurtág's 100th Birthday

Exhibition in the second room of the Museum of Music History

Curator: Anna DALOS

TEMPORARY EXHIBITION

The exhibition is open between February 19, 2026 and November 15, 2026

The exhibition of the Museum of Music History pays tribute to György Kurtág, Hungary’s most well-known living composer, who turns hundred this year. It provides insight into this exceptional body of work, which is centered on humanity and has tragic and painful, yet playful and humorous aspects at the same time. Many documents shown in the exhibition have arrived from the György Kurtág collection of the Paul Sacher Stiftung Basel. The Archives for 20th–21st-Century Hungarian Music and the Library of Musicology of the ELTE RCH Institute for Musicology, the Hungarian Music Information Center and Library of the Budapest Music Center, and the Eötvös Library of the ELTE RCH Institute of Literary Studies have contributed to the exhibition. Furthermore, we are grateful to private individuals, above all György Kurtág, as well as Rimma Dalos, Judit Rajk, and András Szalai, who gave us valuable documents from their own collections. The photographs on display were made by Andrea Felvégi and Kálmán Garas.

Curator: Anna DALOS

Co-workers: Lilla ANDROVICZ-HORVÁTH, Szilvia GÖMÖRI-CSONKA, Péter HALÁSZ, Orsolya HORVÁTH, Lili KIS-SZEKERES, István NÉMETH G., Zsófia SÁRKÖZI, Sára Bíbor SZIKLAI, Eszter Emília WUTZEL, Heidy, ZIMMERMANN

Design and implementation: InnoTeq Kft.

Sponsors: Budapest Music Center, ELTE Research Centre for the Humanities, HUN-REN Hungarian Research Network, Ministry for Culture and Innovation, Paul Sacher Stiftung Basel, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, ELTE RCH Institute for Musicology

Poster: