LX Factory and Evora

I had my concerts in Lisbon on last Friday in LX Factory and Yesterday in Evora and in auditorio of the university's music college.

I will upload pictures later on. At present I can not use internet as much as would like to - but will be sorted out soon. I hope.

In the LX Factory I played my best concert here in Portugal. It went so fine. The party was chaotic a little...

Yesterday in Evora there were just couple of students on my concert but the hall, the concert hall was so fantastic!!! That acoustic, oh my god!!! The best hall I have ever played in. You don't need ampification for classical guitar - the hall is for two hundred people.

And Evora is such a beautifull city - was a pleasure to be there.

Now I am preparing my play for this Friday for Radio Zero live concert.

You can read about it in Portuguese as well:

Sandor Mester ao vivo na Zero

One more video

One more video from Casa de Lafoes by Nuno.

I play two Villa-Lobos Choros and a short Brower etude on this shot.

Tejobar again

We went to Alfama Yesterday with my Ester. I love Alfama I liked this district best in Lisbon. And the square where you can find Tejobar is so romantic I love it!!

I played a bit Yesterday there too as last time which was one month ago. They remembered me and were very nice to me again. The owner of the place reminds me to my grandfather very much who I never wont see again just later on in the skies...

Weather is perfect here in Lisbon, we are having such a great and nice time!! I love this city!!

More videos from Casa de Lafoes

Video by Nuno Veloso

MS3: Serenade



Francisco Tarrega: Capriccio Arabé

Guitar Festival in Casa de Lafoes

We did the guitar festival in Casa de Lafoes. Me and three other gents. Casa de Lafoes is such a nice place with an extremely hot ambience. I love that hall and the building as well. Casa de Lafoes is a kind of cultural centre on Rua de Madalena quite close to us and it is so cool and elegant!

There were 50-60 people - enjoying the marvellous and unique instrument called guitar. I was the only one of four us who was playing classical music. I played two Choros by Heitor-Villa Lobos, Giulliani: D-major Praeludium, Fernando Sor: Mozart-Variations, Francisco Tarréga: Capriccio Arabé, Bela Bartok: 20 Movements from "For Children" (originally composed for piano). And finally the "Senerade" that I composed for my wife - love of my life. Not a great thing to tell to the audience that you wrote it to me because then you lose lots of female fans!! - told me my wife afterwards.

I enjoyed very much to play there. I got so many great feedbacks from the audience - they were so nice to me. I played as emotional as I could. We were on the beach Today and I could sleep well during the last night and a lot so I was in a great mood.

There is a disco sphere on the ceiling - they use this hall for dancing school as well as other activities.



Sandor Mester playing at Casa de Lafoes:





Giuliani - D-major Praeludium
Recorded by Nuno - very nice guy from Sintra. Lot of THANKS for him!!



Me before the concert. Preparing my nails - concentrating.



Andre - organiser of the festival. Played blues and jazz.



James and his friend. Singing, guitar and percussion



Paulo played jazz standards. This is the most complicated thing to play alone jazz standards!!



A very great friend of mine - Andreas Kemi - he is in Lisbon for couple of days and he came to my concert. I was happy to see him there! We had a great chat in the bar about private life, Portugal's history, economy and lots of things.



All of us after the concert
the four players, singers and Paulo Santos my friend who was the speaker of the night and helping me very much in Portugal

More picture from Quisque

The view from the quisque





The audience



Me improvising

Concert in the Kiosk

I had the first concert in the kiosk - Quisque - at Miradouro de Săo Pedro de Alcântara. It was planned for weeks that I can play there but it actually it happaned Today. Frederico told Vasco, Vasco told Lius and Nuno that I would play there. Luis and Nuno are two brothers who are running this place at Bairo alto, one street from our home. It is an amazing place in Lisbon you can see Lisbon view, the castle, Se Cathedral. There is a fontain at the middle of the square like in Dolce Vita (Fellini's movie). The weather was very much windy. Luis and Nuno managed to get an amplifier with a mike for me. It went fine. The owners of the

Me, looking around before the concert. I liked the view very much. I enjoyed the place and liked the fact that I can actually play here!




This is what you see from Miradouro de Săo Pedro de Alcântara around 18.00. Most beautifull view, isn't it?





Playing at the kiosk



View around 19.00h



Luis told me that some of his friends were joking with him that he invites to play a Hungarian guitarist when there is Portugal-Hungary football match - what if Hungary will win? I told him that Portugal will win - Hungary has the worst football team of the world. And I was right.

And a bit later - it was a pleasure to me playing there! Lisbon is so fantastic!









I was playing Bela Bartok's pieces as well - transcriptions from "For Children" that was originally composed for piano.



Today I went to the lavandria. It was a nice and sunny Saturday morning. Was not that windy as it usually is.

Concert in Elvas

I had my concert in Elvas on this Thursday. There was a "problem" there that effected to my concert as well and was a terrible story in itself... A boy from the school died in a motorbike accident this week and had his funeral on the day when I did my concert there... It was in the auditorio - which was an amphiteatrum-like hall.

There were mainly teachers on my concert because of the funeral- Pedro told me that they liked it very much. I hope it was like that...







He is Pedro our friend. We stayed at his place for a night and had a great chat and dinner together with him.



I gave my demo stuffs to the local centro cultural (cultural centre) in Elvas as well as at all the other places where I go to. But they have already schudeled their music festival for this October! Maybe next time!

We stopped at a "monument" that is the saint phallus. (Not a joke - seriously!) What a nice one!!!



Then the way back to Lisbon we stopped at Villa Vicosa. The city of marbles. There are lot of marble around there.



Then we stopped to drink a cofe in Evora where I will play on 26th October.

We stopped at Monsaraz where I talked to a guy is running an amazing venture called Sem-Fim where they are doing concerts, private parties etc. 2 hours later he gave me a call to play there in November! He was so nice!

And it seems that I will play in Fabula Urbis in November in Lisbon. And the other great thing is that we are negotiate with Lorinha organisers to play there too!

So everything is on the right way - I am just so tired. I drove 6 hours Today - and it was to much for me....

Concerts in Portugal

I had couple of very good and succesfull meetings Today. I'll play in LX Factory's open day on 23rd of October. The concert will be in the bookshop's galery. Amazing place for a concert!! I'll play at midnight... Then I went to Casa de Lafões with André checking the place, stage etc. for the Sunday concert that we will do with other three guys. They will play rock, jazz and folk, me - classical guitar - guitarra clássica... Amazing place as well. Like in South-America. That is basically a cultural centre - but the concert hall looks like a big flat and it is on the first floor view to the Rua Madalena.

Then I went to Fábrica do Braço de Prata meeting with the concert organiser lady. She told me the best feedbacks I got in Portugal. She told me that lots of people told her to invite me for a concert so "you must have lots of fans! Lisbon was waiting for you!" - she said. Which means that all the boys and girls who told me that they would help me they really did and talked to the cultural organisers. I love it.

Someone has stolen our GPS from the car during the night couple of days ago breaking the window at the backseat. It was a bad experience... But we got a car repair service 50 meter from home and they fixed it for a very much reasonable price. We got a problem in the bathroom as well and an old lady in the house called a guy to fix it - for free. But we gave him a bottle of great Hungarian wine. He was grateful but we were grateful so much for his help...

We did a journey around in Portugal last week and we went to Spain as well for two days staying in Sevilla at a nice family's flat. Sevilla is unbelievable, elegant and rich - but I prefer Lisbon.

Before we got to Sevilla we were in Sines and in Lagos in Portugal. In Sines there was a huge and enormous fog which is very extraordinary there during the fall. It happens in the winter more often but very rarely in the fall. It was like in a Tarkovskij movie... I found a music centre where I gave my demo stuffs - dvd and brochure - to a lady who promised me that she would give them to the cultural organisers - organizador cultural. And if they need me that will give me a call.



Me walking during the foggy and mystical night in Sines...







In Lagos we were staying at a lady's house called Fatima who was a teacher of Portuguese literature and French language and litareature. We were talking about literature a lot and figured out that she was a fan of Paul Auster just like me. She had couple of books with Auster's signatures. She met him personally! She is a fan of Sandor Marai - me not. She was also very educated in Russian and Checz literautre. Me too. I was looking for a cultural centre - centro cultural - in Lagos and finally found it. We even had the GPS at that time... But the organiser lady was in vacation so I gave my demo stuffs to the receptionist lady. To way back to Lisbon we stopped at Tavaria which was magical as well. Had a fantastic lunch there...

Last week when we were running around like idiots I did not focus on practising. And my level of playing decreased a lot. Which always gives a bad mood for me... But in the last couple of days I practised on a very focused way so it got better.

There is only one but very important thing that I could not solve yet here in Portugal: sporting. I could run at the sea shore in Caparica twice and I found great gyms but they are very complicated and burocratic - so I could even buy a ticket to do fitness - or they are so expensive. I have a pain in my back because of prastising and driving. I hope it will be sorted out somehow in the future...

It is too late so I go to bed - I'll play in Elvas in a Secondary school. Elvas is a marvellous city as well - according to the pictures found on the Net.

11th October

Running around in Portugal

We are running around in the south. We were in Sines at Rui's appartement and then in Lagos at Fatima's flat. Now we go to Sevilla.