January 31, 2008 

Guitar Concert by Dávid Pavlovits on Wednesday, January 30, at 7pm

Hungarian Guitarist Dávid Pavlovits performed at the Embassy on Wednesday, January 30th, at 7 pm. His repertoire included pieces by Dowland, Mauro Giuliani, Augustin Barrios, Isaac Albeniz and himself. The unique guitar concert drew a remarkable Washington crowd, which, in turn, was hugely grateful to the Hungarian guitar virtuoso.

Dávid Pavlovits performing on stage at the Embassy

Dávid Pavlovits is one of the most creative personalities of the new  Hungarian musical generation. He began to play the guitar at the age of 17. He attended the guitar and composition class of the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Szeged. During his studies in Hungary, he was most influenced by Professor Ede Roth. He graduated at the Darmstadt Academy of Music in guitar with distinction, later at the Gutenberg University in Mainz and the Musikhochschule in Munich. He took classes with the following masters: Tilman Hoppstock, Olaf Van Gonnissen, Walter Schumacher, Lajos Huszár, Heinz-Wieland Kurz, Grigory Gruzman. He also attended Leo Brouwer’s master classes, which played an important role in his compositional development.

Since 1993 he has been awarded in several international music competitions: Zory, Poland (distincion), 13th Esztergom International Guitar Competition (1st prize), the Budapest Music Contest (2nd prize), International Guitar Competition of Crete, Greece (2nd prize) and the Viareggio Competition of Composers (distinction). He received the Zoltán Kodály Scholarship for composers in 1999.

He has been teaching guitar, music theory and music history since 1996. Currently, he is teaching at the Faculty of Music of the University of Szeged. His music seminars at the German Institute presented topics like Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano and orchestral music and the musical background of Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus. He earned his PhD in 2006 at the Cluj Academy of Music (Romania) with the thesis: „Albeniz, Granados and Segovia: the impact of Spanish romanticism on the evolution of the guitar”.

Since 1994 he has been taking solo concert tours, radio and TV broadcasts in almost every country of Europe, Latin America and the USA. He gave recitals in cultural centers in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, Mexico City, Rome, Florence, Leipzig, Aachen, Frankfurt, Geneva, Paris, Edinburgh, Sheffield, Vienna, Bucharest, Minsk, Moscow, Belgrade, Ankara, Warsaw and Budapest. In 2005 he performed a highly successful solo recital at Carnegie Hall, New York.

He has been holding master courses worldwide in English, German, French, Russian, Italian and Spanish. He is also active as a composer, publishing a great number of guitar pieces in various magazines and publishing companies. He is regularly invited to juries of international music competitions.