Starting Thursday, the most talented young people from Transdanubia will compete against one another in twenty artistic categories over the course of two days at the Helikon Festival in Keszthely (western shore of Lake Balaton).
As a cultural event, Helikon looks back on a history spanning more than two hundred years. The founder, Count György Festetics, organized the Helikon Festival in Keszthely for the first time in 1817, with participants including students from the local high school and the Georgikon, as well as prominent writers and poets from Transdanubia at the time.
Statue of Count György Festetics in Keszthely. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Allexkoch
The celebrations were interrupted by Festetics’ death in 1819, and although there were several attempts to revive the tradition in the first half of the 20th century, the event was not resumed until 1958. At that time, it was organized once again on the initiative of local patriots from Keszthely, now in the form of a cultural competition for high school students, which has since become a formative experience for generations.
The Helikon Festival is currently a biennial talent festival for Transdanubian high school students, where they demonstrate their skills. The main goal of the event is to offer young people the opportunity to present the skills they have acquired in various artistic disciplines within an organized framework.
On Thursday and Friday, those interested can experience over 500 live performances and artistic presentations at seven venues.
The productions and submitted works will be evaluated and graded by juries of experts, most of whom are well-known actors, musicians, dancers, conductors, or writers, including actresses Anna Fehér and Ilona Bence, singer Kati Wolf, and poet Márton Simon.
The grand prize winners in each category will be announced on Saturday afternoon at the gala, and the winners will take home a bronze plaque by sculptor Ferenc Farkas.
In addition to the competition programs, visitors can participate in performances, lectures, audience discussions, exhibitions, and artistic workshops.
In the evenings, the organizers provide a varied range of leisure activities for young people, including concerts, dance performances, and dance evenings.
The Helikon Festival is a non-profit event; all programs are free of charge.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Helikoni Ünnepségek
