Composer Károly Horváth has died

Károly Horváth has left us.

A name on the bill. Composer: Károly Horváth.

A friend.

He was born in Oradea, but whenever needed, he was a citizen of Odorhei, Timişoara, Zalaegerszeg. Székesfehérvár, Budapest or Bucharest (and I don't know how many others). Everywhere in service of music and theatre. He came home to Oradea with modesty and joy! He ran home, then got on the road again, wandering with the discipline of the sheet and the understanding of man. We hum one or another of his songs every day, melodies he foisted into our souls. Now we know: the children's songs in Our Class were the melodies of our last meeting. This is what he has left for us.

And we have promised ourselves to engrain his face, his humanity right beside the tunes.

We pay forward what we have learnt from him.

May his memory live on!

 

Károly Horváth was born in Oradea, in 1950, when – as he previously had said – “the violinist named Csicsa played, and every self-respecting person swam at the seventh dam in the Summer”. After graduating from the Music Academy of Bucharest, he became a permanent collaborator of the Hungarian broadcast of the Romanian Television, he founded the folk bands Concorde, Táltos, and Mákvirág, became the musical conductor of the theatres of Sf. Gheorghe, Zalaegerszeg and Veszprém, and the director of Griff Puppet Theatre. He composed over 200 scores for theatre. He worked for almost every theatre in Hungary, Romania and Voivodina. He also composed film scores.

His work with Szigligeti Theatre:

As a composer: Ödön von Horváth: Kasimir and Karoline (2009), Parti Nagy Lajos:Mausoleum (2010), Friedrich Dürenmatt: Romulus the Great (2013), Giulio Scarnacci-Renzo Tarabusi: Caviar and Lentil (2013), Molnár Ferenc: Liliom (2014), Tadeusz Slobodzianek: Our Class (2015)

As a music conductor: Urban Exiles (2013), Kellér Dezső-Horváth Jenő-Szenes Iván: The Rape of the Sabine Women (2014).