“The collection of the traditions of folk poetry and of its continuously living phenomena, and their rendering communal and enduring through the press, is one among the many manifold tasks that our indefatigable century has set itself in uncovering facts and details – racial and individual phenomena alike.”
~ János Arany
Primordial culture can be discerned in a single gesture, in a song, in the peace-invoking chords of a musical instrument, in a smile, in a prayer, in a greeting. In the way a person sits on a horse, in the way they hunt, eat, sit, listen; in the way they sing, make music, heal; in the way they live in complete kinship with nature, in the way they perform their physical and most elementary everyday actions – all this contains the totality of the Creator’s activity. The building blocks of such a personality simultaneously build and shape its environment. In the case of a village peasant, not only his customs but even his furrowed facial features may serve as a map “for those who come to visit”, revealing what it means to be, to live, to exist, to die, and to become immortal; what it is like when life is not merely carried out upon someone, but is present for them with an authentic simplicity.
Béla Szerényi is a practitioner of multiple artistic disciplines. He is a restorer who recreates the archaic fate of the Hungarian people, and a performing artist who, through the techniques he has mastered, narrates the messages embedded in the nation’s reservoir of motifs. He is a teacher equipped with an interdisciplinary, exploratory attitude. An artist who unites the border territories of knowledge – philosophy, sociology, cultural history, ethnography, cultural anthropology, folk music, folk song, etc. – and transforms them into shared, communal experiences. A seeker and guide who aligns the interconnectedness of the world along a single thesis – Hungarianness and the musical mother tongue – bringing them into a common point of intersection. Through his work he actively participates in the intellectual and professional cultivation and transmission of our cultural heritage. A pure and free commitment, untainted by artificiality or affectation, forms one of the foundational pillars of his personality. He is able to advocate effectively for the interests of a culture rooted in a musical mother tongue. Whatever he undertakes, whatever he is called to do, he approaches with outstanding integrative vision and synthesising ability, making it accessible to those around him as well. Over the course of the past twenty to thirty years, his work has resulted in the organisation of numerous camps and festivals, and in the preparation of a wide range of folk-art programmes. He publishes regularly and takes part in conferences. In recent years, the organisation of the “Nemzedékről nemzedékre” (lit. “From Generation to Generation”) conference series of the Hungarian Academy of Arts has been closely associated with his name. He has worked on school curricula and has been the initiator and “manager” of countless collaborative events, acting as patron and guide alike. He has founded several ensembles (Bokros Band, FSCO, Magyar Tekerőzenekar [Hungarian Hurdy-Gurdy Orchestra], Nagy János Quintet). His vocation has become a family legacy as well, since his wife, his sons and his brother have all found fulfilment within the world of folk art. They frequently perform together and collaborate closely on shared projects.
“Half a millennium ago, the great masters of the Renaissance often referred to themselves as homo dilettante – that is, ‘the curious human being’. It is likely that the diversity of my own career likewise derives from a personality akin to the outlook of those masters of old: open to everything, seeking connections, and laying the foundations for new paths on the basis of those connections,” Béla Szerényi has said of himself. Recipient of the Young Master of Folk Art award (1989 – soloist; 1992 – Magyar Tekerőzenekar; 1994 – instrument maker), he began his studies at the Pataky tér 1. sz. Általános Iskola (Pataky Square No. 1 Primary School) on its specialised music track, which was followed by the Óbudai Árpád Gimnázium (Árpád Secondary Grammar School, Óbuda), where he studied folk music and folk dance. His most formative alma mater proved to be the Folk Music Department of the Mókus utcai Állami Zeneiskola (State Music School in Mókus Street) in District III (renamed Óbudai Népzenei Iskola [Folk Music School Óbuda] in 1990), where he forged a lifelong bond with the hurdy-gurdy. He attended the School of Music, Instrument Making and Repair of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where he studied violin making; completed degrees in music education and folk music at the Bessenyei György Teacher Training College; pursued studies in educational leadership at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of BME ( Budapest University of Technology); and later became a musical mentor at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. He obtained his master craftsman’s qualification in instrument making already as the holder of the title Népi Iparművész (Folk Applied Artist).
He began his career as a music teacher in 1996, shortly after graduating, in Pomáz at the Teleki-Wattay Művészeti Iskola (Teleki–Wattay School of the Arts), where he taught the hurdy-gurdy until 2014. “During my years in Pomáz I gained exceptionally positive experience of the life of a well-functioning arts school, where the disciplines of classical music, jazz, folk music, dance and the visual arts operated in exemplary harmony,” he recalls. Throughout his teaching years in Pomáz, he maintained continuous and close cooperation with the Óbudai Népzenei Iskola. He took part in the development of both elementary- and intermediate-level curricula. Together with his former teacher, Pál Havasréti, he co-authored Tekerőiskola (lit. Hurdy-Gurdy School). In collaboration with colleagues, he also developed weekend courses and summer camps for hurdy-gurdy instruction, which provide year-round, nationwide opportunities for students who are unable to participate in institutionalised music education. Among these festivals, perhaps the most important is the Bársony Mihály Tekerőlantos Találkozó (Bársony Mihály Hurdy-Gurdy Players’ Meeting) held in Tiszaalpár. Through a well-structured programme, teacher-training courses and the support of tradition bearers, research findings from folk-music fieldwork conducted three decades earlier were successfully transformed back into a living tradition. By writing curricula and the Tekerőiskola, and by establishing a system of weekend courses, the methods of hurdy-gurdy instruction were standardised and operated effectively on a national scale. In 2010, at the invitation of Director Kálmán Záborszky, he began teaching folk music theory at the Szent István Király Zeneművészeti Szakgimnázium (King Saint Stephen Secondary School of Music), where he was tasked with developing the syllabus and the final examination system. He concluded his active teaching at the institution in 2018 but continues to serve as chair of the national committee responsible for compiling examination topics for folk music as a vocational school-leaving subject. In addition, he works as an expert on the preparation of vocational framework curricula and related legislation in the field of folk music. In 2012, at the invitation of Director Tamás Kobzos Kiss, he returned to the Óbudai Népzenei Iskola, this time as a teacher. In the academic year of 2015–16 he served as acting director, and from September 2016 he has held the post of appointed director. The institution is Hungary’s oldest and largest folk music workshop: with 220 students, it employs 22 colleagues. Over the past decades, four members of its teaching staff have received the Kossuth Prize, one has been awarded the title Artist of the Nation, and three are members of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Among the younger colleagues, four are recipients of the Junior Prima Prize. The Óbudai Népzenei Iskola itself received the Prima Prize in 2008 and, in 2017, an official certificate of recognition from the Hungarian Academy of Arts. An important component of Béla’s Szerényi pedagogical work is the programme of live-music dance-house sessions he has led for twenty years together with his sister, Andrea Gundyné Szerényi, a folk-dance instructor and early childhood educator. They also conduct professional training courses for teachers in this field. Since 2016, they have jointly coordinated the programme “Néphagyományok az óvodában” (lit. Folk Traditions in Kindergarten) across twenty-nine kindergartens in Óbuda. He is frequently invited to deliver professional lectures and courses throughout the country and is a regular guest lecturer at several institutions. His closest professional partnerships are with the Hungarian Heritage House and the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Each year he gives specialist lectures at the School of Music, Instrument Making and Repair of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, and he also takes part in the theoretical and practical examinations of future colleagues. The activities of the Óbudai Népzenei Iskola, conceived as a “national methodological research centre”, make it essential to maintain close professional ties with nearly two hundred institutions across the country where folk music education is also conducted. It was for this reason that, in 2016, the three-day event series Magyar Népzeneoktatás Ünnepe (lit. Celebration of Hungarian Folk Music Education) was launched.
Performing career
Béla Szerényi encountered folk music during his secondary-school years and soon became actively involved in the dance house movement. By this time, he was already engaged in folk-music fieldwork and performed regularly at dance houses and festivals. In 1989, together with two fellow musicians, he co-founded the Magyar Tekerőzenekar, which soon developed into a 10–12-member festival ensemble.
In 1996 he launched another formation, the Bokros Band, which went on to achieve success at major European festivals. From 1998 onwards, he has worked regularly with the Erkel Prize–winning composer János Nagy on various contemporary music projects. Since 2012, he has been a regular performer at Márta Sebestyén’s concerts, appearing together with his sons. From 2015, he has performed with his two sons under the name Bokros Trio. This formation is occasionally joined by their Canada-based poet–performer friend István Savanya.
Instrument making
After completing his secondary education, Béla Szerényi studied violin making at the School of Music, Instrument Making and Repair, where he was taught by the master craftsman Gábor Molnár. During his secondary-school years – in the course of his folk-music collecting activities – he established a close relationship with Mihály Bársony, Master of Folk Art. Following the death of the musician and instrument maker, who lived in Tiszaalpár, Szerényi inherited his instrument-making workshop. This legacy is unique in Hungary, as it is the only peasant instrument-making workshop to have survived intact. In 1992, together with his father, he founded a family business under the name Tekerő Kft, through which he has continued to pursue his instrument-making activities ever since. Over the past twenty-five years, he has produced nearly 500 hurdy-gurdies and approximately the same number of zithers. For more than a decade, he has worked with an assistant he himself trained, Gergely Futó. Owing to Szerényi’s many other commitments, in recent years his assistant has carried out a substantial part of the manufacturing process. Béla Szerényi’s own responsibilities focus on instrument design, as well as final setup and intonation after varnishing.
Civic engagement
Alongside his work as a teacher, performing artist and instrument maker, Béla Szerényi has consistently sought to draw attention to the talents of his colleagues as well. The effectiveness of this commitment is reflected in the fact that between 2002 and 2005 he served as President of the Magyar Hangszerész Szövetség (Hungarian Musical Instrument Maker Association). In this role, he acquired comprehensive insight into the entire spectrum of Hungarian instrument making, from organ building to the crafting of traditional folk instruments. Following the reorganisation of the association, in 2008 he and his colleagues founded the Magyar Hangszermíves Céh Közhasznú Egyesület (Hungarian Guild of Musical Instrument Makers, Public Benefit Association), of which he has served as President ever since. The association is based in Óbuda, and through its activities it supports various forms of traditional instrument making, musical performance and education. Its membership includes performing artists, professionals in public culture and education, and instrument makers. The organisation regularly hosts events of national significance, including exhibitions, conferences and festivals at venues such as the Millenáris, Müpa, Dance House Gatherings, and the Festival of Folk Arts. Through its grant applications, it also provides ongoing support for the work of the Óbudai Népzenei Iskola. In September 2015, on the centenary of the birth of Mihály Bársony, the association erected a full-length bronze statue in Tiszaalpár. In 2016, in order to support the operation of the Óbudai Népzenei Iskola, they established the Zenei Anyanyelv Alapítvány (lit. Musical Mother Tongue Foundation). Beyond supporting the school itself, the foundation also assists Hungarian communities throughout the Carpathian Basin, particularly in the field of music education. The Magyar Hangszermíves Céh and the Zenei Anyanyelv Alapítvány regularly organise professional gatherings – such as the Magyar Népzeneoktatás Ünnepe – conferences (including the Shepherd Arts Conference and the Kodály Conference), and publish volumes such as the Gyimesbükki daloskönyv (lit. Songbook of Gyimesbükk) and the Kobzos Kiss Tamás életműkötet (lit. Collected Works of Tamás Kobzos Kiss). The principal supporters of these initiatives are the Hungarian Academy of Arts and the National Cultural Fund of Hungary. The greatest professional challenge of Béla Szerényi’s career in 2018 was the organisation of the Népművészeti Nemzeti Szalon (National Salon of Folk Art) at the Hungarian National Gallery. The “Kéz-Mű-Remek” Kiállítás (lit. “Hand–Craft–Masterpiece” Exhibition) became the most visited event in the history of the National Salons. It was a considerable honour for him to be invited to join the five-member curatorial team. Never before had an exhibition of folk art of such scale, enriched by extensive musical and craft-related professional programmes, been realised in Hungary. Through this project, he was able simultaneously to represent the ethos of the Óbudai Népzenei Iskola and the activities of the Magyar Hangszermíves Céh. In addition to the instrumental sections of the exhibition, Szerényi was also responsible for curating the artistic programmes. It was therefore no coincidence that particular emphasis was placed on presenting the finest Hungarian art schools. This curatorial approach may well have contributed to the exhibition’s outstanding success.
At different stages of his career, different spheres of activity came to the fore. In the early period, performance played the central role, naturally accompanied by extensive folk music research. Later, instrument making came to occupy the greater part of his time; in this field he carried out significant research and development in the history and construction of the hurdy-gurdy, primarily in response to the demands of performance practice and music education.