Author: soharoza

During Cultural Heritage Days, we held a guided tour with musical illustrations through the heritage buildings of CEU. Atmosphere-groove, Liszt: Salve Regina, Katalin Karády and Kula Band songs - of course in a Soharóza way! The project was made by Zsófi Remes. the whole program |

Opening season at the Örkény Theatre. A green lawn in the middle of the city. Bicycle chains, car tires, bells, bird calls, Soharóza on the stage with guest artist Vera Jónás. The Örkény Theatre invited the Soharóza choir to their annual season opening event: an all-day, open-air cultural programme in the heart of Budapest. The...

http://taboo-collection.com/ Body, sex, gender, blood, sickness, death, horror rhymes for children. Sensitive topics on the catwalk in extravagant dresses inspired by internal and external taboos. Taboo Collection is the visual and musical cooperation of the costume magician behind the legendary Budapest shows PESTIESTI, Syd and Recycle, and the award-winning leader of the experimental choir Soharóza....

In this tragedy by Aeschylus that was never staged in Hungary before, five members of Soharóza sang as the Choir of the Danaids. What does it mean to be a refugee? How does it feel to be persecuted from your land and that your life or death depends upon a foreign country you're asking for...

As part of the 9th Ördögkatlan Festival Soharóza guided the audience through the house of Kovács Udvarház (Blacksmith's Yard). During this special guidance we tried to find out the house's secrets - who lived here...? A grumpy auntie? Boys who were taken to become soldiers? A mother singing lullaby for her children? Housewives gossiping in...

An outstanding concert of Soharóza, organised by Európa Pont. The performance, which was inspired by the Earth's Day, was put into effect according to eight choir member's concept. Wineglasses, aluminium foils, waffles, bells, velcros and of course, human voices and melodies could be heard during the concert. Concept: Máté Szilvay: Music of Spheres Zsófia Remes...

Co-operating Artus and the Central European Dance Theatre, Soharóza worked together the second time with Gábor Goda's Ephemer Works and took part of a special pub-performance. Every Ephemer Work show is a premiere as artists have just one day to create a unique performance which is to be presented in the evening. There is no...

The discovery of the Mexican Suitcase, containing long-lost photos taken by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, David 'Chim' Seymour and Fred Stein during the Spanish Civil War, was as great a sensation in 2007 as if a secret chamber had been found behind the tomb of Tutankhamun. The Soharóza choir was invited to perform a side-programme at the exhibition, compiled from their own...

Joint Representation was a special performance by Soharóza which was held in a courtyart of a house in the centre of Budapest. The residents' desires, conflicts and strangeness was shown by the members of the choir while the building's spaces, walls and staircases became an integral part of the piece. The audience stood in the...

This year The Hungarian Association of Theatre Critics gave theatrical awards for the 35th time in 15 categories. During the gala, which was directed by Martin Boross, the stage became an anti-utopian jungle in which the prizes were announced. So, what is a choir for? To have the chance to give the Special Award to...

Celebrating the birthday of Artus and Fonó, Soharóza choir had the chance to take part in the performance of Ephemer Works. This means that the artists meet in the morning and they have only one day to create a new performance together for the evening. Here's a short preview of the performance: gargling a hungarian...

As a part of OFF-Biennálé's program, When Art(ist) Speak(s) Soharóza choir participated as the 'mass' in Hajnal Németh media and performance artist's play, The Loser . Andrea Csereklyei (soprano) and Kornél Mikecz (baritone) opera singers were the two main characters in this two-act play, in which the audiance could witness the fallen politician's and banker's...

In this game anyone can be a conductor. The musicians of Béleműhely and the singers of Soharóza make sounds according to the movements of the conductor's body and face. Therefore every player of the game create an improvisatory piece  together. No need to speak. Move only. Press (in Hungarian): Bárkiből lehet karmester | varosban.blog.hu Mindenki...

Experimental choral theatre based on HILDEGARD VON BINGEN's life and works playbill Polyphony and improvisation based on Hildegard’s plain chants and elements of her life. The choir plays with natural acoustics and amplification, weaving movement and sound experiments into the plot and notes of a morality play written and composed by the abbess herself. Both music and thoughts were...

This video project made by Máté Szilvay in collaboration with 12 singers from Soharóza aims to rethink the opening scene of Philip Glass’ opera Einstein on the Beach. While the visuals reinforce the conveyor belt-like technicism and uniformity of repetitive music, the text recited in prose seeks after the possibilities of freedom in chaos. synth: András...

Fulfilling a special invitation by the famous Hungarian pop band KFT the choir contributed to its concert at the Hungarian State Opera. We participated in three songs as chorus and a fourth one – The Train from 1982 – was covered by Soharóza alone, acoustically and in our very own interpretation. The feedback of the performance...

A new idea, a new terrain, a new kind of challenge: applying to a traditional choir competition with an unconventional repertoire. We travelled to Lake Ohrid in Macedonia to compete with 30 choirs from all over the world. Our programme, containing mainly innovative contemporary pieces, was a huge success among the audience. The jury granted...

As guests of the site-specific festival Placcc, Soharóza was invited to perform at the Bánkitó Festival by a beautiful lake in the countryside of Hungary. The choir led the audience on a musical tour, strolling around the lake, crossing (climbing across) a narrow wooden bridge occupied by singers marching slowly on their knees, into an...

Soharóza was commissioned to create a choral performance to be held at the opening of the exhibition Past, Continuous - Contemporary Reflections on the Cultural Legacy of Socialism, reflecting on the Socialistic atmosphere of the 1950's – in contemporary adaptation. The venue of the performance was the dome hall of Fészek Club (a club popular...

Gastroblogger Zsófi Mautner came up with a simple, but truly enchanting idea for the Christmas dinner of YPO (Young Presidents' Organization): she prepared an international menu based on the nationalities of the participants. The Soharóza Pop-up Chix - a group of five female singers - took this idea further and created music for the different cultures of each dish. All this...

Directed by video artist Hajnal Németh and with music composed by Dóra Halas, Soharóza presented an adaptation of the Tiszaeszlár Affair, a case of blood libel closed in 1883, created for the exhibition False Testimony. The expressive and unsettling piece about a young Jewish boy who was intimidated into confession was performed live at the...

* Doctor of Liberal Arts The unconventional ideas of our musical leader and conductor, Dóra Halas, her deep and lucid dreams about choral music came to be manifested at her doctorate concert. During the course of several performance phases, all under the umbrella of a concept called Metamorphoses, an attempt was made to shed light on...

For this one single hot summer day, Sziget – the festival island – became a wonderland waiting to be discovered. Besides circus, acrobatics, literature, music, theater, juggling and other unexpected performances, a group of Soharóza singers in flower-costumes also appeared at unexpected points of the island. The afternoon thus brought with itself a slight taste...

The impromptu choir Soharóza and the extemporising theater company Momentán took the stage together at the pan-art festival in the South of Hungary. The performance, directed by Pál Göttinger, involved the singers and the actors ‒ i.e. the players of the game ‒ improvising scenes and sounds based on impulses gathered from the audience. Later the...

Börek, menemen, aubergine in yoghurt and other Turkish delights for a beautiful sunny morning on a Budapest terrace. Yet again a new collaboration with the gastroblogger Zsófi Mautner, but this time only six female voices from Soharóza, the Pop-up Chix. A unique vocal performance to match the dishes, based on folk music, lullabies and the poppest of...

Location: the control room of a power station – a fated space cast into deterioration, but still beautiful, a mix of retro and sci-fi. The rehearsal period ended here in total swelter, with no ventilation or electricity, so we used candles and flashlights. We felt the soft dust from the 1960s on our sweaty skins...

The 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt’s birthday provided some rather extraordinary events for the visitors of The Palace of Arts. The audience in wait for the concert were suddenly struck by a peculiar atmosphere through which they could experience the composer’s adventures in foreign lands. Participants of the first occasion found themselves in the middle...

By autumn 2010, we grew tired of being busy and preparing for concerts and art projects all the time. We decided to stop "rehearsing" and start "experimenting", developing our so-called "skills", without setting a concert date. When we won a grant for studio recording however, we eventually recorded some of these experiments. It was a...

Musical sounds turned into saveurs: mouth to mouth. We often have the opportunity to work together with food blogger Zsófi Mautner, writer of the renowned gastroblog Chili&Vanilia. This time our short musical improvisation blocks and Zsófi's enthralling cute pieces of desserts were merged within a concert based on music and food of different nations. Menu:...

Soharóza received an invitation to the event “Pécs2010 as the Capital of Culture in Europe”, which was held at the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin. The musical material was based on the wide variety of colourful music of the people living in the city of Pécs – embellished with visual and rhythmic elements. After our flashmob...

This unconventional theatrical show is a choral improvisation based contemporary opera, with a libretto inspired by a website that collects and explains current Hungarian slang. The story resembles an Ancient Greek tragedy, and as the characters are singing in an exaggerated, fictional slang-language, the tough guys of the countryside turn into epic heroes. The concert...

Iconic Hungarian singer-songwriter Tamás Cseh died in August 2009. In those very same days, somewhere in the Southern region of the country, a moderate crowd was partying at the Ördögkatlan interart festival. The latter event was opened by Soharóza's performance and, much more importantly, was made happen by Tamás Cseh's close friend László Bérczes. It...

Contemporary arts often create a new context for old stories – just like this piece, where Adam and Eve appear in the age of Internet, Skype, chat and webcam. The use of modern technology allows the mixing of genres, styles and spaces – all this with a hint of humour. Choir members – moving among...

The first big experience – it is the magic we all remember. The magic of standing close together in the dark and suddenly noticing how breathing becomes music. The magic of concentrating on one and the same thing in our minds while singing a tribal African song – and having the rest of us understand...

In 2008 Dóra Halas was commissioned by the renowned theatre director Viktor Bodó to create a theatre choir for one of his plays, the Apartment Block Stories – so Soharóza actually owes its existence to the play. In the last scene, the choir functions as a live singing scenery, shocking the audience in total darkness,...

frankel leó street | december 2008 This one is from our good old days, right before our leader Dóra Halas and her husband started the renovation of their freshly purchased flat. The goal was to make the neighbours accept and understand the various kinds of noise that would pour from the third-floor apartment from that...