The appointment process for the position of President of the Liszt Academy has recently
opened, as the current President, who is in office until 31st October 2023, cannot apply for a
third term according to law. In a civilised country, this would not be an issue, but it has
created turmoil in Budapest.

What has happened?

The Minister of Culture and Innovation is responsible for publishing the calls for applications
for university president positions.
The requirements of a president’s position should not be too surprising.
The Liszt Academy is a university; thus, the basis of an application is the rank of a university
professor, which is tied to a high level of expertise in the candidate’s field of music, a doctoral
degree, appropriate teaching experience, language skills and international connections, and
in Hungary the successful completion of the “habilitation” procedure some years previously.
Besides that, it is necessary to be familiar with the administration of higher education, to
have management experience in the area, and a clear vision, a general strategy about the
future of the institution.
The presidents of the Academy of Music, founded by Franz Liszt himself, have always met the
requirements of the given era as specified by law throughout the 148 years of the existence of
the institution. These have included performing artists, musicologists, and composers.
In the spring of 2023, the Ministry sent a draft of the application information to the Liszt
Academy for preliminary discussions, which the Academy completed with some points they
thought were important. There was no reaction for months (which is quite typical for the
Hungarian government), then, one night out of the blue (also quite typical for the Hungarian
government), the call for application was published on 3 rd July. Besides having nothing
whatsoever in common with the draft discussed in the spring, it contained some severely
discriminatory characteristics, since only performing classical musicians were eligible to
apply to become president of the institution whose curricula, as a matter of fact, extend to the
whole spectrum of creative arts (composition, musicology), teacher training, jazz, folk music,
and church music.
A previously unimaginable wave of objections started in the Hungarian musical sphere. 231
teachers of the Academy (the absolute majority), several music organisations, and the
Association of European Conservatoires (AEC) have raised their voices. As a result, the
minister said (not in official communication, but in a TV interview) that he would revoke the
application in question and publish a new one instead. He also added that he envisages a
“lighthouse” to the top position of the Liszt Academy.

The new job advertisement published with a deadline of 20th August, 2023, however, is still outrageously discriminatory, but in a different fashion, since it is tailored to a specific person to an extent that is without precedent in the history of Hungarian higher education.

To whom is it tailored and why?

It has been known from interviews for months that there are self-professed prospective candidates, whose ambitions are paired with a messianic zeal. One of them is András Keller(1), internationally acclaimed violinist, chamber musician, conductor, the director of the Concerto Budapest, Visiting Artist of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the bearer of the title of International Béla Bartók Chair, a Hungarian musician. He led the Chamber Music School at the Liszt Academy between 2012 and 2015 (he could not be a department head, because he did not have the necessary qualification, that is, a doctoral degree). He tried everything to have his orchestra, the Concerto Budapest, become the resident ensemble of the Liszt Academy, but, in the end, the management decided against it. Finally, he left the Academy in tempestuous fashion, as severe concerns were raised in connection with his teaching style and tone, and because of regularly cancelling classes without rescheduling (Keller says this is not true; he claimed these accusations were slanders of an institution led by curriculum-pen-pushers). Due to his tone and alleged verbal abuse, an investigation has recently been undertaken at his orchestra, too, which – though under dubious circumstances – has concluded without his condemnation.

His orchestra ended up on the verge of bankruptcy a couple of years ago, and its survival was secured only by a direct intervention by Orbán’s government. 

Recently, the Minister for Culture and Innovation talked about a radical transformation of the state’s cultural funding (including the funding of symphonic orchestras, too). 

Please, don’t give up, I know the story is getting too complicated, but it is worth reading further.

At the time of issuing the draft job advertisement, András Keller still did not meet the requirement of the rank of university professor. To obtain such a high rank normally takes years. However, not in the Hungary of today. Because, during the spring term the National Assembly hastily passed an amendment (which is a piece of cake with an absolute majority) that one organisation called the Hungarian Academy of Arts (HAA) will be authorised to declare people so-called university professors “not assigned to universities” based on their (artistic) awards given by the state. 

Don’t be misled, HAA is not an active higher education institution, it is a public body serving the Orbán government as a counter-institution to the official Arts Department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, with the self-description of “a place where nation-oriented thinking were natural and exemplary”. This institution is receiving unusually generous financial support from the state and has gathered unprecedented power in Hungary’s cultural and educational landscape. In short, HAA can now establish someone as a university professor by circumventing any university, simply based on state awards. 

What a surprise, András Keller (and Barnabás Kelemen) were made university professors by the Hungarian Academy of Arts, precisely during the months while the minister was silent about the draft call evaluation. 

Capisci?

However, gaining the professorial rank with a bypass was still insufficient to pre-empt any competition for Keller. They needed to find other criteria, which the university’s sole candidate, the vice-president (who enjoys the Liszt Academy Senate’s support) could not meet. These criteria have become the state awards that only András Keller has. 

The minister is, on top of this, so inexperienced that he let it slip in a new TV interview that he had discussed the application criteria with serious professional organisations – the only problem is that one of these “serious” organisations is an association called Association of Hungarian Musicians (2) , founded a couple of weeks ago(!), whose president is – what a surprise! – no one else but András Keller. 

In the meantime, the governing parties’ hand-controlled media machinery launched a time-tested discreditory smear campaign against the Liszt Academy and its own candidate. 

The Hungarian Rectors’ Conference keeps dead silent – not for the first time.

Where do these threads meet? 

Why do they need to make so sure as to require precisely those awards held only by András Keller, next to his “bypass” professorship? Why laugh in everyone’s face?

Presumably, the same occupation manoeuvre is afoot with which the 155-years-old University of Theatre and Film Arts, the SzFE was gutted 2 years ago, and, deprived of its autonomy, it was forced into the dubious privatisation called “shift in governance models”. Then, the SzFE resisted in a scenic and witty fashion, their 71 days of occupying the university ended only by the Covid regulations(3). 

This shift in governance models is presently the basis of operations of the vast majority of Hungarian higher education institutions which are not run by churches (altogether 21) (4). The majority of these universities “shifted model”(5) under threats to cut state funds; in some cases in dubious circumstances.

However, five universities have so far resisted the forced shift. One of them is the Liszt Academy, whose Senate and management publicly declared multiple times that there is no benefit of the shift for the Liszt Academy, especially now under the threat of the withheld Erasmus funding (see footnote 4.).

But, as we can see, this is the fate of those who resist: getting punished by severe cuts in state funds which threaten everyday functioning, topped by a Presidential job description tailored to András Keller who is openly not supported by the Liszt Academy Senate. 

Who knows what the government expects of András Keller in exchange for saving his orchestra earlier and to exempt it from the possible negative consequences of the restructuring of cultural funds? They keep denying the shift in governance, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating…

And new interviews are being published about Mr Keller the pure, empathic, friendly father figure, the greatest artist ever, and the saviour of the Hungarian music scene.

Tiberius: I shall make you my successor, Gaius Caligula! I’ve decided. You shall stay here with me. Rome deserves you. I will nurse you like a viper in her bosom.

Caligula: Is that a joke, uncle?

Tiberius: Not yet, but it will be.

/I, Claudius, TV Series/

 (1)  Another prospective candidate, Barnabás Kelemen has stood down in the end, presumably due to the unclarified questions regarding state subsidies of several hundred million HUF (several times 260 000 EUR), which were reported by independent media.

(2)  [Translator’s note.] The Hungarian name – Magyar Muzsikusok Szövetsége –, probably unintentionally, but, still, hilariously, yields an acronym – MaMuSz – meaning “slippers”.

(3) Ironically, the new SzFE could refill the ranks of its professors only with these “bypass” professors in the place of its qualified teachers who had resigned, so as not to lose its status as university.

(4) The issue of the universities shifting models was not missed by the European Commission, since they decided that – until appropriate statutory guarantees are introduced – the teachers and students of the universities which have shifted models cannot receive Erasmus, Horizon2020, and other development funds. They do not think either university autonomy or the legal and transparent use of the development funds are guaranteed, since the governing bodies of these universities are led by active politicians directly linked to Orbán’s government, their ownership structure is not always transparent, their operation convolutes private and state funds. This decision was made in December 2022, Orbán’s government has not taken the expected steps since then, thus, presently, the most likely outcome is that several thousand students and teachers will be ineligible for the advantages offered by the mobility of the Erasmus programme, as will research groups for Horizon2020 from 2024 on. Higher education in Hungary is becoming increasingly more isolated, and not because of its professional performance.

(5) There has been no objective research undertaken yet into the outcomes of the shift of governance, but it is known that the careers of dozens of internationally acclaimed teachers at the University of Theatre and Film Arts was severely damaged, their lives broken, their health deteriorated. For their culture war, Orbán’s government punishes every actor in the field of arts who does not follow the government’s preferred narrative with cuts in their funding, that is, with ruin.