The Modern Art Orchestra is Hungary’s leading big band and the resident band of the Budapest Music Center, presenting its incredibly broad and ever-expanding repertoire in highly successful series at both the Concert Hall and the Opus Jazz Club. With their latest album, they have set out to interpret the choral works of Zoltán Kodály, one of the leading figures in Hungarian ethnomusicology and musical education.

One of the most characteristic features of the work of Kornél Fekete-Kovács and the Modern Art Orchestra is the integration of the various strands of contemporary classical music and jazz into a single artistic vision. This is reflected in the list of musicians they have chosen to work with. They have now teamed up with the Kodály Choir Debrecen, whose repertoire includes not only the best of a cappella and oratorio literature, but also, even more importantly, contemporary music, with hundreds of premieres to their name. The approach of the current album differs from that of Modern Art Orchestra’s 2018 release, which reflected on Bartók’s 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs: on the previous album, the compositions and improvisations were less separable in their performance, while here Kodály’s choral works – including the iconic The Peacock – present a crosssection of the composer’s oeuvre, followed by folk song-inspired big band and choral paraphrases by the band members.

The artistic director of the Modern Art Orchestra, Kornél Fekete-Kovács, has been a key figure in the Hungarian big band scene from the very beginning, not only gathering Hungary’s most talented musicians around him, but also playing with foreign artists such as Johnny Griffin, Benny Golson, Tom Harrell, Peter Erskine, Rick Margitza, Herbie Mann, and Kurt Elling. His close relationship with BMC Records is evidenced by several albums, including Integro / Grandeur (2010, Fekete-Kovács Quintet & Pannon Philharmonic) and the 2022 album Different Aspects of Silence (with Veronika Harcsa, Dan Bárta, and the Robert Balzar Trio). The Modern Art Orchestra has recorded a total of four albums for BMC Records. In 2014, saxophonistcomposer Kristóf Bacsó, a member of the orchestra, recorded his own compositions. In 2020, Foundations: Yamas and Niyamas, lauched to become the label’s third most listened-to release on streaming platforms. 2018 saw the release of the most direct precursor to this Kodály album, 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs, a tribute to Bartók, on which David Liebman, Veronika Harcsa, Mihály Dresch and Miklós Lukács joined the band for a few tracks. The album received great international reception, and has been followed by tours abroad, with the band most recently presenting the material in Germany.