Competition Judges
Gergely Ittzés
Born in Hungary (1969) and a graduate of the Budapest Liszt Academy of Music, GERGELY ITTZÉS is one of the most proactive personalities of the flute scene. While being a researcher of his instrument and composer of many experimental flute works applying the most up-to-date flute techniques, especially polyphonic playing, he does not specialize in contemporary music only but tries to connect it with tradition. His large repertoire includes all the important works written for his instrument and a great number of rarities from the past centuries and today. In addition to classical and modern music, several other styles have also influenced his musical idiom, like jazz and free improvisation.
Mr. Ittzés has given concerts and led master classes in most European countries, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, and the United States, being invited here by the most prestigious institutions such as Juilliard, Manhattan School, Mannes, Eastman, Oberlin, Yale, NEC etc. Numerous composers have dedicated works for him. He gave the first performance of Anthony Newman’s Flute Concerto at the Budapest Spring Festival, 2005. He has been invited to perform at major flute festivals of the world (Beijing, Brazília, Paris, New York, Manchester, Freiburg and many others) and debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2014. He is an active soloist and chamber musician, a member of he UMZE Chamber Ensemble and founder of the TeTraVERSI flute quartet. He has worked together with Magdalena Kožena, Heinz Holliger, Péter Eötvös, Miklós
Perényi, Zoltán Kocsis, Zoltán Rácz, the Amadinda Percussion Group, Barnabás Kelemen, Kristóf Baráti, István Várdai, and appeared as the soloist of the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Toronto Sinfonietta, Katowice Philharmony, Bach Works New York, Huntsville Symphony and other ensembles. He played improvisatory music together with Markus Stockhausen, Emil Viklický, Don Thompson, Leni Stern, Szilárd Mezei, etc. For ten years he used to be member and composer of the etno-jazzrock group Talizmán.
He won many national and international competition prizes (including the Grand Prix of the 2nd Aleksander Tansman International Competition for Musical Personalities in Poland) and national distinctions such as the Franz Liszt Award and the Lajtha Award. In 1998 and 1999 he was supported by the Annie Fischer Grant offered for promising young soloists. From 2018 he recieves a three-year grant from the Hungarian Academy of Arts for his creative work. The German Lexikon der Flöte dedicates an article to his activity.
After graduating, Gergely Ittzés spent a year at the international Prague Mozart Academy then a few months at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada where he completed and recorded his large-scale work Vision Pit for four flutes. He participated in numerous master classes (with András Adorján, Michel Debost, Michael Faust, Jean-Claude Gérard, István Matuz, Auréle Nicolet, Carol Wincenc, etc.). His most influential non-flutist tutors were György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados.
Mr. Ittzés has recorded more than twenty CDs, including Hungarian contemporary music, his own works and violin transcriptions, and lesser known repertoire like Pierre-Max Dubois, Eugéne Walckiers, Boccherini or the complete flute oeuvre of Sigfrid Karg-Elert, as well as improvised music. His new recording project entitled "The Great Book of Flute Sonatas" includes all of the significant flute sonatas of music history (34 pieces on 7 CDs). The collection was nominated for the International Classical Music Award as one of the three best collections of the year.
Mr. Ittzés has been flute professor at the Széchenyi University in Győr since 1995. In 2017 he spent one semester at the Boston University as a Fulbright guest professor. In 2019 August he will join the faculty of the new branch of The Juillard School founded in Tianjin, China (tianjin.juilliard.edu). As a devoted teacher he has been working and lecturing on his comprehensive flute methodology ‘Flautology’. The Hungarian version of the book was published in 2018. Editor of various flute publications composed or transcribed by himself or others, Ittzés has worked with publishers like Akkord, EMB, Universal, Billaudot, Presser and Kossack. His composition Totem was commissioned by the National Flute Association for the Young Artist Competition held in Las Vegas, 2012. In the following year the edition of the piece won the solo category of the NFA Newly Published music contest. As the result of his research on the multiphonic capabilities of the flute he published the software and DVD-Rom Flouble in 2012 (flouble.com). He holds a doctorate from the Franz Liszt Academy; his dissertation, written in 2008, is entitled The Role of Polyphonic Thinking in Flute Playing.
Gergely Ittzés plays a Sankyo Pure Silver flute with a special golden Seder headjoint.