The composer and his wife Marta have been awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award on his 91st birthday and their 70th anniversary.

Hungarian composer György Kurtág recently celebrated his 91st birthday and his 70th wedding anniversary. To commemorate both milestones, he and his pianist wife Márta, were presented with a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award at a ceremony in Budapest. Worth £30,000, the award recognises their distinguished contribution to the world of music, as well as their long and committed musical partnership.

The award is given in memory of Franco Buitoni, cofounder of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust, a foundation that helps outstanding young musicians to develop their international careers. Ilaria Borletti Buitoni, widow of the late Franco, travelled to Budapest with BBT trustee Mitsuko Uchida to present the award.

^{Ilaria Borletti Buitoni, Márta Kurtág, Mitsuko Uchida, György Kurtág. Photo by Bálint Hrotkó}.

At the ceremony, Ilaria spoke briefly about the Trust: “My husband, Franco, passed away last August. He and I founded BBT in 2002 to help talented young musicians develop their careers. From the very beginning we were pleased to have the artistic guidance and ideas of our founding trustee, Mitsuko Uchida, who was also a dear friend to Franco. I wanted to honour my husband’s own lifetime of loving and supporting music with this special award and there seemed no better person to nominate a worthy recipient than Mitsuko.”

In presenting the award, Uchida said of the couple: “Intense, mysterious, dark, and otherwordly; these are the words that come to my mind when I think of György Kurtág’s music. He is inspirational and fiercely honest but there is also a deep love that glows through his music. This may be an expression of his extraordinary relationship with his wife, Márta. Anybody who has heard the Kurtágs play, four hands, would know what that means. We know György Kurtág the great composer but with him always is Márta the wonderful pianist. They live music together. Therefore, the special Franco Buitoni Award goes to György and Márta Kurtág.”

“We have all been so lucky to have known them and their music, me especially,” Uchida added.

Though now both in their 90s, the Kurtágs show no signs of slowing down – they spent the day of the ceremony in rehearsals for Kurtág’s new opera.