Amadinda will play at the Grand Theatre in Calgary on May 27 at 8 p.m. (Concert 3 of the Fort Macleod International Festival).

Amadinda will also play during the afternoon recital at the Empress Theatre on Sunday, May 29 at 3 p.m.  They will perform exciting Zimbabwe music and Tahiti music along with other exciting pieces. (Concert 5 of the Festival).

Their final performance will be on Monday, May 30 at  7:30 p.m. at Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump. (Concert 6 of the Festival).

Tickets are $30 regular for single concerts and $12 for students.

We hope to see you there!

Members: Zoltán Rácz, Zoltán Váczi, Aurél Hollό, Károly Bojtos 

Amadinda Percussion Group (visit Amadinda's homepage here) was formed in Budapest, Hungary in 1984 by four musicians who had just graduated at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. Back then, Amadinda had two objectives in mind: First, to bring the now classic masterpieces of percussion music to the Hungarian audience which was not familiar with these compositions at the time and second, to premiere the music of contemporary Hungarian composers both in their home country and internationally. Right from the start, Amadinda has made it a point to inspire composers to write new music. One fruit of this endeavour was the debut performance of John Cage’s Four4, a piece written for Amadinda, in Tokyo in 1991. In recent years, Amadinda’s initial goals were enriched with three new elements: research of traditional percussion cultures, composition of new music and transcription of some great pieces from the history of music to percussion instruments. As a result, traditional music from four continents, the beFORe JOHN series of Zoltán Váczi and Aurél Holló, transcriptions of pieces by Ravel, Debussy and other European composers were all added to Amadinda’s repertoire.

A definite highlight of Amadinda’s career to date was the premiere of György Ligeti’s composition Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel (With Pipes, Drums, Fiddles) in France. The piece was written especially for Katalin Károlyi and Amadinda in 2000.

The compositions of Steve Reich, one of the most influential composers of our age are key elements of Amadinda’s repertoire. The nearly 20-year relationship between Reich and Amadinda fruited compositions like Mallet Quartet, dedicated by Reich to the then-25-year old Amadinda and Canadian percussion group Nexus. The piece was premiered at the Palace of Arts in Budapest in December 2009.

The diversity of Amadinda’s work is also reflected by their numerous recordings. A highlight of this discography is the 6-CD series containing all the percussion compositions by John Cage. With the first album released in 1991, the recordings in this series encompass a significant portion of Amadinda’s career; the sixth and last CD of the set is expected to be released in 2011.

Besides the three world-famous composers, Amadinda has also collaborated actively with renowned artists in the past 25 years like Peter Eötvös, Zoltán Kocsis, András Schiff, György Kurtág, András Keller and James Wood. Nowadays Amadinda is regarded as one of the most original and versatile percussion groups in the world.

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