On this day in 1943 Vangelis was born. The very first CD I bought over three decades ago was composed by him: Chariots of Fire. After so many years, I still love his music. My Vangelis collection As you can see, I do not have everything by him. I do not like his earliest and latest works that much, but almost everything in between. Unfortunately I could not find everything on CD.

Last December, the CD shop where I bought most of my collection closed its doors for good. I had seen it coming — the owner had been gradually winding down the business in preparation for retirement — but after nearly 30 years of shopping there, it was still a tough moment. Stereo logo This logo belongs to Periferic Records - Stereo Kft.. Back in the nineties, during my university years, I used to look for this logo at concerts, always hoping to spot a bearded man selling an incredible selection of CDs.

Last weekend, I was welcomed to a special event in an industrial area of Budapest. Zsolt Audio – one of the best known high-end audio manufacturers in Hungary – turns 40 this year, and Zsolt Huszti, the founder, started a series of events celebrating this in the showroom next to his “factory”. We listened to some fun stories from the past 40 years, and also to music on some of his latest devices.

This week, I reorganized the speakers in my room and wanted to test the change by listening to a wide variety of music. The first piece that came to my mind was “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue, as I have a fantastic recording of it made by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. That said, I know that I’m not a music maniac enough, as I do not have it on vinyl, but rather as a digital download from HDTracks: https://www.

This weekend I visited the first Audio Expo in Budapest. It was the first music event I truly enjoyed in years. Even if corridors and rooms were packed, there was enough fresh air. What sets this event apart from other events is the focus on listening to music on the vendors’ products rather than just the speeds and feeds on why you should buy their products. While, of course, the expected outcome is the same, with the emphasis on listening to live systems, I found the event much more comfortable to walk around.

I love music. My family, friends, colleagues love music. I am in quite a few music-related Facebook groups. A returning question everywhere in the past couple of weeks in various wordings was: what are the five albums you would bring to a desert island? This list is of course changing almost each and every year. And also depends on the number of albums, and if live concert recordings, “best of”, etc.

This is my last blog for 2023, Budapest time. However, it might already be the first blog of the year from me, if you live in Japan or New Zealand :-) This time it’s a single song: “Happy new year” from ABBA (and from me :-) ). TIDAL: https://listen.tidal.com/album/575781/track/575787

If it’s Christmas, then for many people it means watching Home alone. Related memes have appeared in social media already in the summer: “100 more days before you watch Home Alone again” ;-) Well, I do not recall when I watched it for the last time, so probably not in the past decade… However, even I know that the most famous song from the movie is Carol of the Bells. I was surprised to hear how many musicians make a cover of a song from a film.

One of my favorite instruments is the church organ. A few weeks ago we already listened to organ and drums, but those were just covers of some popular songs. However, the church organ is also used in original music, including some really well-known songs. Next to Bach, probably the best-known appearance of a church organ is in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. As a kid, first, I copied it from vinyl to tape, after which I also bought it on CD.

One of my favorite albums is Vedres Csaba és a Kairosz kvartett – Áldott Idő / Blessed Time. It was made by Hungarian pianist Csaba Vedres, who worked together with a string quartet. Their music taught me that string quartets playing alone, with a piano, or with any other instrument can do some fantastic music. The band was founded by Csaba Vedres, who had a classical music education. Besides playing the piano, he also researched the topic of classical vs.

In the first part of my music recommendation blog series I mentioned that many people turn to me for some less mainstream music. For quite a long time I thought that listening to cellos playing metal is already something niche. Then it turned out that many people around me love this kind of music. Recently I found something really niche: church organ and drums :-) I love the sound of the church organ.

I love the melodies of Metallica songs. However, I strongly prefer instrumental music. That’s why I was very happy, when someone brought Apocalyptica to my attention: they played Metallica on four cellos. Over the years I discovered that metal or any other music sounds nice on cellos, as I learned about two more bands: 2cellos and Mozart Heroes. But I should not rush so far ahead. In the year 2000 someone introduced me to Metallica.

As you might have guessed from my previous blog posts: I love music. Colleagues, family, and friends often turn to me for suggestions if they want to listen to something new and less mainstream. This blog is about music I listen to, the first part of what will hopefully become a series. I hope you also find something interesting here! Why did I pick “Pictures at an Exhibition” when I talk about “less mainstream” music in the opening paragraph?