A bridge between the past and the present – Christmas spheres – we spoke with Zoltán Mizsei about Gregorian chant

On December 21, medieval festive songs will be performed in an unusual form, accompanied by a special visual world, and fill the six-sided space of CODE immersive. We asked performer Zoltán Mizsei about the details of the production, which is debuting in Veszprém.

Gregorian chants represent one of the most unique musical traditions of the Middle Ages, which are being reinterpreted more and more frequently today. When combined with contemporary art, these ancient melodies create a unique bridge between the past and the present. Christmas spheres – Gregorian melodies performed live by Zoltan Mizsei, are complemented by real-time animated images by Lili Anna Mizsei and Péter Kühn, .

Gregorian chant pieces are a common heritage for us represent a common heritage for us Europeans, originating in the early Middle Ages and even as far back as ancient times. Thus, the melodies of the performance are both ancient and universal, performed in a single voice, representing the most fundamental styles of European music.

When I had the good fortune to enter Hexagon for the first time, I immediately sensed how enormous this space was, and I instinctively began to make sounds and sing. The experience I had here was very similar to the acoustics of a church, even though we are not actually talking about a sacred place. Nevertheless, the strict and clean layout of the Hexagon, its circular symmetry, is very similar to the ideas in which art also tries to find space and bring it closer to eternity, to heaven. We want to create this harmony here at Hexagon, both in sound and in visuals.

I feel fortunate in that my musical work to date I have been able to deal with both ancient archaic and modern music, which I have always tried to synthesize or synergize. During the performance, two theoretically distant worlds are connected: contemporary visual art and archaic singing. But the fortunate coincidence is that, in addition to live singing, the visuals show the real light of real objects, so that the visuals are in perfect harmony with the sound. We hope that this will further enhance the harmony, even though the images are digitally projected onto the wall and the singing voice is sometimes supplemented with digital effects.

I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to quiet down for an hour and surrender to the silence conveyed by the sounds. I am confident that children can also enjoy the experience, although they are the most difficult age group in this regard, but I believe that they too will be able to marvel at everything they will experience. When my daughter first showed me the visualization, I could have watched it for hours, and it was hard to believe that what I was seeing in Hexagon space was just glass. I think that the most magical combination of the simplest things will now come to fruition, which I will try to make even more special with my singing voice.