In July 2019, 22 Voix de Vivre singers set out for Kecskemét in Hungary to take part in the International Kodaly Music Festival, a great honour for us and a landmark in the choir’s history as it was our first ever foreign tour. Most of us flew in, and some intrepid travellers arrived by train, late for the first beer.

We were superbly hosted by two local chamber choirs – Cantus Nobilis, who we already knew from their visit to the UK two years ago when we shared a concert, and the newly-formed KEK (Kecskeméti Énekes Kör) choir with their charismatic conductor Peter Erdei. KEK welcomed us to our concert venue, the baroque Piarist church, with two fabulous songs by Kodaly, which set the bar pretty high for us! But the capacity audience were really appreciative of our British programme, featuring glories of British music from Byrd to Macmillan, under Neil’s typically inspired direction. We were glad we’d been warned in advance that in Hungary a slow handclap is a sign of particular appreciation!

 Local press review by Varga Géza, hiros.hu

The Kodály Arts Festival continued on Friday night with a concert by Voix de Vivre. This chamber choir from England in collaboration, this evening, with members of the Kecskemét Singing Circle presented a programme including compositions by Byrd, Tallis, Stanford, Holst, Britten and Zoltán Kodály. In every minute of the concert, one could feel the opening phrase of the anthem of William Byrd’s Psalm 81: “Sing joyfully.”

…..Voix de Vivre sang with visibly enormous, heartfelt joy. One noticed throughout that all the members of this English chamber choir deeply felt the opening words of the first William Byrd piece: ‘Sing joyfully’. After this beautiful composition by the ‘father’ of English music, under the guidance of Neil MacKenzie, they performed renaissance choral works and pieces written by English romantic composers.

  In the second part of the concert, the guest choir first performed late romantic folk songs and then twentieth century and contemporary works. James MacMillan’s The Gallant Weaver particularly moved all those present. Composed to a text by Robert Burns, the Scottish national poet, this piece combined Scottish folk music and Celtic Psalms to produce one of the most distinctive examples of MacMillan’s secular choral music. One could only listen with awe.

The uplifting closing number of the concert was a joint performance by Voix de Vivre and the Kecskemét Singing Circle of Henry Purcell’s “Hear My Prayer, O Lord”.

“Song makes life more beautiful, the singers make others lives too. There’s not much point if we sing to ourselves, it’s better if two get together. The more the better, one hundred, one thousand, and the great Harmony, in which we can all be one. Then we can really say: the whole world rejoices.” Zoltán Kodály’s thoughts – listening to Voix de Vivre’s programme – are certainly known to members of this English choir. But if they weren’t, then his truth was discovered and practised: their concert in Kecskemét testified to that.

  The day after our concert our new friends in KEK had organised a trip for us to a Hungarian heritage centre out in the country. It is very flat round there – the clue is in the name, the Great Hungarian Plain – but beautiful with fertile fields of grain and sunflowers stretching to the horizon, and woods of birch, plane and acacia giving welcome shade from the hot sun. We rode in horse-drawn carts, visited a preserved Hungarian peasant’s cottage, ate goulash, made the acquaintance of pigs and turkeys, and were given a fantastic display of horse-riding and driving skills. Margaret maintained British honour by volunteering to mount one of the horses, thereby fulfilling an entry on her bucket list, to ride across the Hungarian plain!

We were all so grateful to the small group who organised this trip for us: Margaret, Lesley, Andrew and Neil, as well as to our Hungarian friends for their kind welcome – and we are sure it won’t be the end of our Hungarian association!

“It was such a privilege for us to be singing at such a prestigious event.”
“Kecskemét…we were struck by how beautiful it was.”
“Cantus Nobilis Choir laid on a buffet supper for us…we were made to feel extremely welcome and the language barrier seemed to melt away.”
“…amazing collection of folk instruments at the Kecskemét Musical Instrument Museum.”
“… certainly an experience to remember.”

Catharine Jessop (with contributions from other choir members)