Csaba Szabó
Biographie Csaba Szabó
Csaba Szabó
composer, musicologist, college teacher, was born in 1936 in Ákosfalva, Maros - Torda county. He began his studies at the Marosvásárhely Music School, after which he obtained his composer diploma at the G. Dima Academy of Music in Cluj under the guidance of the Kodály students Gábor Jodál and János Jagamas. He began his career as the conductor of the Marosvásárhely State Székely Folk Ensemble. As a composer, he contributed to the development of the orchestra’s repertoire (1957-1967). From 1963 to 1987, he was a teacher at the István Szentgyörgyi Theater Institute, where he taught music theory, music history, and the subject "rhythm and intonation of Hungarian speech". From 1961 to 1987, he was a member of the Association of Romanian Composers and Musicologists. From 1979 to 1986, he was the head of the Marosvásárhely branch of the Association of Romanian Composers and Musicologists. In 1987, when he announced his intention to relocate to the relevant authorities in Romania, he was removed from his college position and his works were deleted from the national repertoire. After moving to Hungary, he was a teacher at Dániel Berzsenyi College in Szombathely from 1988 until his death in 2003.
His life and activities tied him to two countries, but to one homeland and one profession: to serve Hungarian musical culture of European rank. Like his teachers and masters, he did not separate the branches of the transmission of musical education: composing, performing art, scientific and educational work. Thus, his work is versatile: composer, musicologist, folk music researcher, teacher. His compositional and scientific orientation and activities were guided by the Hungarian folk music and music history tradition he brought with him from his homeland. The cause, service, teaching, authentic preservation and research of Hungarian folk music from generation to generation are an important part of its intellectual heritage. Until 1987, he worked in several areas of Romanian musical life. He was regularly concerned with issues of folk music, music history, prosody, and music teaching. As a public writer, he published music criticism, reviews, and popularizing musicology articles (mostly in Romanian, and to a lesser extent in Hungarian) magazines and collected volumes. He gave lectures in the mentioned subject areas in Romania, Hungary, the USA, and France.
In 1978 he won the prize of the Association of Romanian Composers. His compositions: Songs, choral works, symphonic works, masses, stage music.
