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To be or not to be a civil association?Máté Hollós, 2026, independent scientific component part or a chapter in a monograph
Abstract: Before 1989, the Association of Hungarian Musicians was the only professional organisation for all kinds of musicianship in the country. Departments for composers, performing artists, musicologists, experts in education as well as popular music worked on a more or less reasonable level. Music was not a real subject of interest in politics, unlike, for instance, literature, so a relative and growing freedom could be realised from the 1970s on. No amount of financing can ever be enough for the arts, but solid support was given for concerts, radio recordings, and publishing, with the record label financing contemporary works from its own income. Since 1989 other music societies started to be established, and one of the first was the Hungarian Composers’ Union (HCU). Most of these gathered within the framework of Hungarian Music Council. The Composers’ Union did not join the Council, stating that its voice in the overall music scene had to be louder than some of the smaller societies. In line with Hungarian “tradition”, another umbrella organisation was soon founded, with a political motive, called the Hungarian Music Chamber, and later renamed the Forum of Hungarian Musicians. The HCU did not join this, either. This independence came in useful, as when the government wanted to engage with the Hungarian music scene its partners became the Council, the Forum and the HCU. In the three and a half decades of civil democracy the struggle for financing has become more and more difficult: the National Cultural Fund has decreased, and according to the changes in copyright law the CMOs, mainly Artisjus, now have to finance composers’ work. At the same time, the role of civil society has decreased in Hungary, and the governmental authorities show no interest in contacting independent music societies. After 35 years of the Hungarian Composers’ Union, the following question remains open: What is our future in the coming decades?
Keywords: contemporary music scene, composers’ societies, changing of the system in Central Europe
Published in RUP: 10.03.2026; Views: 372; Downloads: 11
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