Tibor Szemző

[1] Szemző was born in Budapest, into a middle-class family, declassed as a result of World War II and socialism.

In 1973, he founded the Szemző Quartet (originally a trio)[2] playing improvised chamber music, which later merged into Group 180.

(During the ten years of its existence, the Group worked with such major figures of the genre as Frederic Rzewski, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Alvin Curran, Phill Niblock, Arnold Dreyblatt, Peter Kotik or László Vidovszky.

His highly successful and award-winning film was made about the life of Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, pilgrim, linguist and tibetologist.

The direct antecedents of the film were the Invisible Story (1996-2000)[17] based on Béla Hamvas’ prose and The Other Shore (Japan, 1996).

[18] Other prominent pieces in Szemző's oeuvre are Tractatus[19] based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1991-1995), the film Free Fall (1996),[20] the Free Fall Oratorio (CD, 1999),[21] and »K«Engravings, a multimedia-series on Franz Kafka, covering the ten-year cycle between 2008 and 2018.

[22][23] His regular co-operating partners include the Agon Orchestra from Prague, the Moyzes Quartet from Bratislava, Jenő Oláh's and János Sándor's Folk Ensemble, the Amadinda Percussion Group, the Moving House Company, the Moments Notice Trio, the Danubius Quartet, the Polish Teatr Ósmego Dnia association, the Opus Posth from Moscow and the Polish Camerata Vistula chamber music ensemble.

In his creations, verbality, speech sound, multilingualism, and motion picture play an essential role in a close unity.