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Géza Szilvay was born in Budapest
in 1943. He studied Violin at the Béla Bartók
Conservatory, Violin Pedagogy at the Budapest Music
Academy, and Law and Political Science at the ELTE
University in Budapest, gaining his Doctorate in 1970.
In 1971, Géza Szilvay was invited to teach the violin at
the East Helsinki Music Institute. Expecting to be
working with a small group of advanced players, on
arrival he found instead 68 very young beginners. And he
didn’t speak Finnish...
In 1972, Géza’s first child, a
daughter, Réka was born. She had responded to the sound
of the violin before birth. The diligent and loving
father had been making preparations of how to introduce
her to music, so he started using these ideas with his
new violin students, adding to them constantly. These
concepts were naturally underpinned by the educational
principles of Zoltán Kodály. In collaboration with his
cellist brother, Csaba (b.1941), and also with ideas
from their father, these materials gradually developed
over the decades into the Colourstrings of today.
In 1984, Géza was promoted to the
Directorship of the East Helsinki Music Institute. In
spite of the initial language barrier, the Szilvay
brothers' teaching
has created incredible results, as a large percentage of their
students over the years (including 59 of Géza’s original
68) are now professional musicians.
Réka Szilvay
now plays on a Stradivarius, has performed as soloist in
over 20 countries, and is currently the only full-time
Violin Professor at the Sibelius Academy. But best
known in Australia of Géza Szilvay’s beginner students
is
Pekka Kuusisto, who toured the country in 2008 with
Musica Viva, in 2009 as Guest Director of the Australian
Chamber Orchestra, and in 2011 with Finnish jazz pianist
Iiro Rantala. Pekka also performed "Winter" in the
film 4themovie.
In 1972, the Szilvay brothers
founded the Helsinki Junior Strings (latterly known as
the Helsinki Strings), now regarded as one of Europe’s
finest chamber orchestras. Scottish music critic
Michael Tumulty wrote: “Elsewhere, stock exchanges
stagger and currencies crumble, politicians of all
persuasions rant and roar but in Finland two Hungarian
brothers, adapting Kodály’s choral method of music
education to strings, maintain an uninterrupted flow of
superbly disciplined players – young fiddlers on the
roof of the world – whose warmth of corporate tone would
melt the heart of the snow queen and whose rapt
enjoyment and quite stunning technical security imparted
an infectious sparkle...”
After nearly 40 years of tireless
work with their students, the Szilvay brothers retired
in late 2010. Retirement from daily teaching of
children simply means that they now have more time to
maintain a busy lecturing and teacher training schedule
throughout Europe, and further afield to China, Taiwan,
Australia, and the USA. In 2012 they will be
embarking on a new project incorporating
videoconferencing as a teaching tool, whereby in real
time they will be teaching the students of leading
Colourstrings teachers across the world, assisted by the
children's local teachers. |
