Dedications
- In May of 2018, István Grencsó invited me to participate in a project he organized for his Collective, a quintet of remarkable musicians. This was my first direct encounter with István's beautiful, energized music, and his incredible work as a multi-instrumentalist, we have met again since and plan to continue our collaboration into the future. With good reason- our creative connection perhaps started in a mutual respect for the music of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, but it quickly built from there; I could hear István's profound knowledge of the history of American and European free jazz, which he has used to develop his own unique pieces and personal approach to improvisation. In István Grencsó's case, both his composing and playing extend well past mere technique into a deeper realm, called art.
Ken Vandermark
The fifth Adyton free music workshop was the first one I was involved with. The experience re-confirmed for me that free improvisation is in fact, at its core, creative association: We can only improvise freely with those who are willing to associate with us creatively. The question was this: How can a workshop bridge the different perspectives and levels of experience in performance and practice, in a way that allows all of us to participate and develop our own sense of what free improvisation can be and help us to become? (And, while we're at it, let's make music right now!)
Leaving aside the occasional gaps in translation flowing throughout our work together, I found myself coming back to key points that were part of my own instruction over the years (from my many teachers, whoever, whenever). It comes to this—from the most technically complex performances to basic human relations: Bring your heart and bring your ears. Be ready to play from the heart and listen for everyone. Music is in the air at all times, and we are free to pluck it together while we can, in a way that helps us all know that the music remains with us and without us.
It is in our hearts that we feel the presence of the music, and it is through our ears that we commit to one another. We can make many types of music without listening to one another well. But we cannot improvise freely together without the commitment to listen as deeply as we can to one another. One way to think of it is as a spiritual practice.
I think we had a tremendous time. Knowing that we would be together for four days helped us to be open to trying different things and seeing what worked and how it worked. We knew we could ask questions and exchange ideas.
Lewis Jordan
There are certain spiritual initiatives that try to find their way amidst strong counterblows. György Szabados is no longer with us but his views and music tend to defy the fly of times. His colleagues, friends and fans created a web site dedicated to his oeuvre as well as started the Adyton free music meetings in Nagymaros, his residence, in 2015 and formed the Adyton Arts Foundation that organise annual Adyton Christmas Concerts. This is a small but highly comitted group of musicians who meet periodically to seek self expression and joy in performing music. This collective of people, consisting of singers, reed players, guitarists, bass players, keyboard players and percussionists, headed by wind player István Grencsó, represent all walks of life. According to the teachings of Szabados, human beings are endowed with pure musicality since their birth, a state of mind that is superimposed by structures of observations and cultural experiences. The ultimate goal is to dispose of the manipulative influences of the environment so as to be able to show off the most innate feelings and gestures of the individual. Free playing is a musical practice that, as opposed to set formules and gestures based on mechanical reproduction, takes its creative energies out of sources of openness, naturalness and spontaneity.
Gábor Turi
- Freedom is the natural consequence of voluntary constraints. Decease of the seed is birth of the plant.
Barnabás Dukay