FERENC SNÉTBERGER

Born in 1957 in northern Hungary, guitarist/composer Ferenc Snétberger was the youngest son of a family of musicians. Early on his father, a guitar player also, became his role model. Snétberger studied classical music and jazz guitar. Today he is best known for his art of improvising and his crossing of stylistic borders. His music is inspired by the Roma tradition of his home country, Brazilian music and flamenco as well as classical guitar playing and jazz. He made numerous albums as a leader, co-leader and sideman and has toured all over Europe as well as Japan, Korea, India and the United States.
In 1995 he composed his Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra, “In Memory of My People”, on the occasion the fiftieth year following the end of the holocaust. Inspired by melodies of the gypsy tradition, the concerto is a powerful statement against human suffering. It has been performed by the composer himself with chamber orchestras in Hungary, Italy and Germany and also at the New York UN headquarters (International Holocaust Memorial Day, 2007).
Ferenc Snétberger performed Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XI (for solo guitar) as well as concertos with orchestra by Vivaldi, Rodrigo, and John McLaughlin. He also wrote music for film and theater. On stage he performed with David Friedman, Dhafer Youssef, James Moody, Trilok Gurtu, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Bobby McFerrin and others. In 2002 Snétberger was appointed freeman of his birth town and two years later received the Hungarian Order of Merit. In 2005 he was awarded the Liszt Ferenc Prize in Budapest.
In 2004 Snétberger founded his new trio with legendary Norwegian bass player Arild Andersen and Norway-based Italian drummer/percussionist Paolo Vinaccia. With natural ease and on the highest level the three of them bring together choice compositions, technical skills, improvisational drive and musical fantasy. Released in fall 2005, their debut album “Nomad” was greeted with enthusiasm by critics and listeners.
In the same year Snétberger’s performance with Bobby McFerrin at the Veszprém summer festival (Hungary) was recorded for the DVD “Snétberger live” (solo / duo with McFerrin / trio “Nomad”). In summer 2007 Snétberger was invited by McFerrin for further duo concerts in Germany and Spain.
Snétberger’s cooperation with Markus Stockhausen started in 1999 with “Landscapes”, a duo suite recorded for Snétbergers album “For My People”. In three movements the musicians immediately create a language of their own showing their talents in an amazing way. “They come along lightly and yet filled with melancholy – and they give the impression that one day they simply HAD to meet in order to make this music happen. You can’t help but hope this cooperation will be continued soon,” Ralf v.d. Kellen wrote in Intro magazine. Eight years later during which Snétberger and Stockhausen have further been stimulating each other artistically, their duo album “Streams” finally proves their development.
Since his early childhood Ferenc only longed for becoming a great guitarist. Yet his father did not really promote the son’s enthusiasm for music. Only when he was 13 years old, Ferenc was allowed to attend the music school. There he studied classical guitar and discovered his love for Johann Sebastian Bach. This fascination has been enduring until today. After many years of professional work and a bunch of records under his own name, his personal style has developed into an amalgam that defies all common musical categories.
A guitar magazine put it this way: “What he plays is jazz, is classical, is Brazil. Snétberger’s great art is the dialogue between today and yesterday, the synthesis.” His playing includes native gypsy music and Spanish flamenco, classical guitar and jazzy episodes. Snétberger wants to take the listeners on a journey through all these different musical worlds and discharge them with the feeling of an unusual and very special experience. His means to this end is improvisation. When he enters the stage he usually has a sheet of paper with him that shows one or two bars of music, some chord symbols and maybe a third bar behind. Nothing that anybody else could understand. Nothing that an untrained mind could consider a serious sketch. Yet for Snétberger these notes mean the structure of his music. He knows exactly which keys he will take his melody to and has defined all the turning points. Everything he plays is improvised but everything is aiming at a goal.
His new album, “Balance”, recorded at the Philharmonie Berlin, documents one of these “very different situations” when even an extraordinary musician like Snétberger surprises himself. Improvising gives the artist the freedom to pick up the mood of the moment and let it flow into his playing. For this kind of interaction Snétberger loves his audiences.

Ferenc Snétberger usually walks on stage with a piece of paper on which are scribbled a couple of bars of melody and a few chords. That is all he needs for a solo concert. Others may understand the signs but only he can construct a clear improvised concert around them. He is currently the best known Hungarian-Roma jazz and world musician in the world, gliding between jazz, Brazilian music, classical and Roma. But one of the defining characteristics of his guitar playing is improvisation. Besides his intimate solo concerts, he is also at home in duos and larger bands where he appears no less unique. He has teamed up with Bobby McFerrin and Markus Stockhausen, played with Tunisian lute artist Dhafer Youssef and has his own Trio Nomad with Norwegian Arild Andersen on bass and Paolo Vinaccia on percussion. He has even experimented in large orchestral set ups, for example in his work “To the Memory of My People.” His latest exciting project is a collaboration with the Nádor String Quartet and József Barcza Horváth. The quartet has been playing together for the last six years and is a regular guest at international competitions and festivals and their repertoire extends from Viennese classics to Hungarian contemporary composers. This fusion of Snétberger with his improvisation, the string quartet with its mastery of classical music as well as one of the finest jazz double bass players of the Hungarian younger generation, József Barcza Horváth (who has played with the Festival Orchestra as well as many world famous jazz musicians) promises to again knock down barriers, but with the musical subtlety we have come to expect from Ferenc Snétberger.

The latest Ferenc Snétberger’s exciting project is a collaboration with the Nádor String Quartet. The quartet has been playing together for the last six years and is a regular guest at international competitions and festivals; their repertoire extends from Viennese classics to Hungarian contemporary composers. The quartet is composed by : Gyula Gabora (First Violin), Nándor Farkas (Second Violin), Emil Csonka (Viola), Marcell Vámos (Cello).

Traduzione di Chiara Voltini