Kurtágiana

About the program

Kurtágiana celebrates György Kurtág in the year of his 100th birthday through a constellation of musical memories, affinities, and homages. Robert Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen stands beside Kurtág’s Hommage à R. Sch., where the music of an earlier composer becomes the starting point for an intensely personal response. Marco Stroppa’s Hommage à Gy. K. carries that gesture forward, turning toward Kurtág himself and extending the conversation across another generation.

The idea of homage then opens outward. Ana Sokolović’s Prelude and Fugue for GG, written as a tribute to Glenn Gould, approaches musical memory from a Canadian perspective, while Linda Catlin Smith’s intimate A Nocturne brings another voice—and another kind of concentrated listening—into the circle. Excerpts from Kurtág’s Signs, Games, Messages return us to the composer at the centre of the program: music of extraordinary compression, where a gesture, a silence, or a handful of notes can contain an entire world. Together, these works reflect SALT 2026: Proximity as a closeness across time—between composers and their predecessors, between performers and the music they inhabit, and between memories of the past and sounds made present.

Originally from Seattle, Joanna Hood studied viola with Isadore Tinkleman at the San Francisco Conservatory and Abraham Skernick at Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington.

Since 1986, Ms. Hood has played with the Lafayette String Quartet, which she co-founded. As artist-in-residence at the University of Victoria, in Victoria, BC, she teaches viola and chamber music. She performs with Victoria’s Galiano Ensemble, as well as the Loma Mar Quartet and Orchestra of St. Luke’s (both in New York City).

Ms. Hood has been a committed teacher since 1983, when she was associate instructor at Indiana University. In 1986, she taught viola at the Institute of Music and Dance, in Detroit, Michigan, and served as artist-in-residence at Oakland University, in Rochester, Michigan.

Ms. Hood performs with the Loma Mar Quartet based in New York. She helped found the group in 1997, for the Bard Music Festival (when a classical quartet was needed). Since then, they have collaborated with Sir Paul McCartney in a performance, and a recording of his music, titled “Working Classical” (on the EMI label), and A Garland for Linda (Selections) also on the EMI label. Also along with the other members of the Loma Mar Quartet she has been principal viola with the Lincoln Center Jazz orchestra, as well as making a recording with Jazz singer Claudia Acuña.

With pianist Karen Enns she has performed recitals in Canada and the United States, and has commissioned works for the viola by Murray Adaskin, Al Hood and Justin Haynes.
Throughout her career, along with concerts in Canada, the US and abroad, Ms. Hood has broadcast for CBC and NPR, and other radio stations, worldwide. She has also participated in the Spoleto Festival, Olympic Music Festival, the Adam New Zealand Chamber Music Festival, and the Caramoor International Festival (with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s), among others.

She plays on an English viola made in 1754 by Edmund Areaton.

As a versatile conductor, composer and researcher, with a flair for captivating the attention, emotions and intellect of audiences, Ajtony Csaba is a thought-provoking and imaginative artist. 

The music director and conductor of the UVic Symphony Orchestra in Victoria (Canada) since 2010 and conductor of the Central European Chamber Orchestra (mikamo) in Vienna since 2007, he is at home in the orchestral life of two continents.  During his career, he has worked with leading orchestras around the world, such as the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra (hr-sinfonieorchester), the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Vienna, the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and almost all Hungarian orchestras. He was resident composer and conductor at the Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden (EZKH) and assistant conductor to the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2008 to 2010, he conducted the Hermes and Recycled projects with mikamo in prominent concert halls throughout Central Europe, including the Konzerthaus and Radiokulturhaus in Vienna, and the music academies of Budapest, Bucharest and Cracow.

Having graduated with distinction from the conducting program of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and further studied with Peter Eötvös and Lucas Vis, Csaba professes for musical communication that overarches physical and conceptual borders.

Csaba is equally comfortable in the orchestra pit and on the concert podium. At 25, he made his opera debut conducting the Hungarian première of Shostakovich’s Cheryomushki; later he worked as Kapellmeister at the Studiobühne Wien, leading critically acclaimed productions like Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Schönberg’s Erwartung and Bluebeard’s Castle by Bartók. Between 2013 and 2016, he studied the historic interpretation of operas by Puccini and Verdi with Maurizio Arena at the Teatro Mancinelli (Orvieto, Italy).

He has been a frequent guest at the Darmstadt New Music Festival, SiMN (Curitiba, Brazil), Wien Modern and the Transparent Sound Festival in Budapest. He plays a vital part in the global contemporary music community with his imaginative curating in such positions  as co-director of the SALT New Music Festival in Victoria (Canada) and artistic director of the NewSpiritMusic concert series in Budapest.

The balanced use of extended and historical techniques and a genuine interest in glissando are the hallmarks of the music written by Ajtony Csaba, winning him prizes in Hungary, Austria, Canada and Germany. His music theatre gentle birth and his solo, ensemble, orchestra, choral and chamber music have been regularly performed in concert houses and at festivals around the world.

In performance, composition and research Ajtony Csaba is exploring the notion of gestures in music. Passionate about passing on his knowledge and experience to others, he is conducting professor at the University of Victoria and regularly conducts masterclasses at renowned institutions in Europe and North America.