Mike James from FACEBOOK, side bars from other sources
András Schiff was born a Jew in soviet occupied Hungary, in 1953 . A piano prodigy, Schiff started piano lessons at the age of five with Elisabeth Vadász. He continued his musical studies at the Ferenc Liszt Academy with Professor Pál Kadosa, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados, and in London with George Malcolm. Andras Schiff has expressed deep worries about the right-wing radical chauvinism and nationalism of the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary lately. He has said, “antisemitic baiting has become socially acceptable in Hungary.” After being decried as Saujude (Jewpig) on Internet, Maestro Schiff cancelled all his concerts in Hungary and is now in self-imposed exile from Hungary.[21] In December 2013, Schiff told an interviewer from the BBC that he had received anonymous threats through the internet, stating that “If I return to Hungary, they will cut off both of my hands. I don’t want to risk physical and mental assault.” In addition, wrote the interviewer, “Even without that threat, Schiff says he would find it difficult to play in Hungary. Art and politics cannot be disentangled. The audience matters to performers. ‘We are not naïve,’ he says.”
Bach, Beethoven, Bartok, but there was more.
After intermission, conductor Andras Schiff, one of this planet’s great pianists (he had given us striking performances of Bach and Beethoven concertos), picked up a microphone at the podium to talk about music, politics, and why he never goes back to his native Hungary.
Sebastian Lukács Gorka Donald Trump and the American alt right’s image of a Hungarian hero. The British-born Hungarian is a self proclaimed military and intelligence analyst. Prominent for his appearances on Fox, Gorka served as deputy assistant to US President Donald Trump in 2017 until outrage over Gorka’s receipt of a medal from a Hungarian Nazi (“nationalist”) organization led to Gorka’s forced return to Fox. . Gorka has written for a variety of alt-right publications linked to American nationalism. He rejects the term “alt right” as “a new label for nationalists or irredentist bigots”.
Bartok himself fled Hungary in the time of Hitler’s domination over Eastern Europe. He’d settled in New York, penniless, on the edge of starvation, when a commission from the Boston Symphony allowed him to write his Concerto for Orchestra (1943).
Andras Schiff, “I have been threatened that if I return to Hungary, they will cut off both of my hands.”
In a time of threats almost everywhere to democratic life, of tribal politics, of attacks on judicial and journalistic independence, Schiff said it is time to look at ourselves – to stand up. That moment brought cheers across Benaroya Hall.
