A series of events to mark the 550th anniversary of the coronation of King Matthias will begin on the 22nd of January 2008 and finish exactly one year later. The events will include cultural, gastronomic and scientific themes amongst many others. The aim of Renaissance Year 2008 is bring people closer to values from the Renaissance period that are on the verge of being forgotten. The organisers do not disguise their intention to draw parallels between the artistic, cultural, social and economic rebirth of the renaissance period and modern times. After all, our world is going through changes just as important as those experienced in the time of King Matthias and there is a need for the values that which made the Renaissance a success.
Budapest Summer Festival, 2008 (10 June – 10 September 2008)
Margitsziget and Városmajor Open Air Theatre
The main aim of the Budapest Summer Festival, which takes place in the Margitsziget stage and Városmajor Open Air Theatre and the surrounding area, is to serve the needs of a wide range of audiences and age groups by providing a festival environment following the closure of normal theatres in the summer season. In order to strengthen tourism they organize a continuous series of programs and performances guaranteed to be held. All events are part of the colourful genre system to entertain the people of both the capital and Hungary. Both locations of the festival are in central places of the city, yet surrounded by valuable natural environment which provides a relaxed, open-air entertainment opportunity for the audience. Visitors of the festivals every year are surprised by the novelties, private programs, folklore evenings, guaranteed tourism attractions and large-scale performances. The Budapest Summer Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2008 by offering 2 locations, almost 70 performances for the music-, theatre- and concert loving audience.
Further information
Neo-renaissance architecture in Budapest - Exhibition (15.09.2008. - 31.12.2008.)
Budapest City Archives (3-5. Teve u., Budapest, H-1139)
Budapest City Archives introduces the representative trend of style of the late 19th century with an exhibition of the largest architectural heritage of the Country, the neo-renaissance plans of Miklós Ybl. These include the collection of plans of the Fővámház (Main Customs House), Opera House, and the buildings of the palace-quarter, behind the Hungarian National Museum: the Festetics-palace and the Károlyi Alajos palace.
Apart from the plans, the period photographs of the buildings (for example the pictures of György Klösz) are also on display, together with maps and works by other architects and planners, such as Alajos Hauszmann and Imre Steindl that make the exhibition material more descriptive. The exhibition is accompanied by other events and an architectural history conference. Exhibition tour guides are available at request.
www.bparchiv.hu
KERTÉSZ - MOHOLY–NAGY - BRASSAÏ - CAPA
Photography’s Greatest Hungarian Masters
The universal history of photography lists four Hungarian artists, without whom not a single work of photographic history could be complete. Works by André Kertész [Kertész Andor] (1894–1985), Moholy–Nagy László (1895–1946), Brassaï [Halász Gyula] (1899–1984) and Robert Capa [Friedmann Endre Ernő] (1912–1954) provide guarantees for every exhibition space. Their pictures are benchmarking icons of photography between the two World Wars.
The pieces exhibited follow the work of the artists from the years before the First World War to the years after the Second World War, to the end of the photographic trends in this period.
With a selection of pictures that embodies the life work of the artists the exhibition represents their place in the history of photography. In addition, the exhibition catalogue provides a description of the period connected to the viewing of well-know pictures. The exhibition also gives an insight into the background of the four photographers and the peers who had or might have had an effect on them both in Hungary and abroad.
Please click here for further information!
RENAISSANCE IN THE EGYPT OF THE PHARAOHS (08.08-09.11.2008)
Museum of Fine Arts 
Respect for the historic past and its myths and the preservation and conscious, but selected, use of venerable inventions from the past were characteristic of Egyptian culture in the age of the pharaohs. Thus this kind of ‘renaissance’ attitude is deeply rooted in the 3000 year old history of the Egyptian state. The exhibition puts the last golden age of Egyptian pharaohs into the spotlight while giving an exciting insight into a culture that continuously kept traditions for 3000 years.
The pieces of the exhibition arrive from the British Museum and the Louvre and from collections in Berlin, Vienna, Florence, Rome, Trieste, Palermo, Munich and Zagreb.
You can find further information here .
23rd Nike International Budapest Half-Marathon (07.09.2008.)
Budapest, City Park
The Nike International Budapest Half-Marathon will be held for the 23rd time on the 7th of September 2008. The slogan of the competition is ‘The Beatable Distance???’, indicating that the race distance of 21097.5 metres is far from impossible for any runner who trains regularly and prepares well. 750 representatives from 45 nations will join the Hungarian athletes on the starting line of Hungary’s largest half-marathon event before going the distances on the streets of Budapest.
The race centre will be housed in the City Park and participants will run past the most beautiful sites of the Hungarian capital, including Heroes’ Square, Andrássy Boulevard, the Parliament and the Buda Castle, as well as along both banks of the River Danube.
The 21km half-marathon distance can be run individually or in pairs, with one runner taking 13.3km and the other 7.8km. Those who would like to get on the starting line but don’t feel reading to tackle the above distance can test themselves on the 3.5km Nike Park Track.
See where to run here.
Jewish Summer Festival 2008 (31.08-07.09.2008)
The Jewish Sum 
mer Festival has become one of Hungary’s most important, most visited and most interesting cultural and art events. The festival, held in the last weeks of summer, is even capable of generating interest from sections of society that would not normally visit such cultural events. Visitors not only get an insight into a culture that they may not be familiar with, they can also become part of that culture. They can get to know the traditions and celebrations of a culture with a history of several thousand years and in addition see artists and performers who will offer them a once in a lifetime experience. Our festival both takes care of traditions and takes sustenance from them, as well as renewing and enriching itself every year.
KOGART EXHIBITION: RE: FRESH 2004 – 2007 (31.07.2008 - 28.09.2008)
The exhibition series Fresh Europe has come to its fifth occasion. Such an opp
ortunity offers a chance for retrospection and summary. Year by year, the display gave an overview of those directions, approaches and forms of expression that were adopted by freshly graduated students of visual arts. What the diploma pieces together highlighted was not a shared style, but a peculiar sensitivity that was shared by students of the same year. In 2004, the Hungarian Academy of Art was the only participating institution, while the years to follow saw more and more foreign academies join the initiative (from Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.) The Faculty of Art at Pécs University was first represented in 2006. In an attempt to promote Hungarian contemporary art abroad, the Fresh Europe show was also presented in Berlin in 2005, in Brussels in 2006, and in Vienna in 2007.
Re:trospective and irre:gular, this year’s Fresh re:flects on the first four years of the series, and presents, by way of questions and answers, a selection of previously featured Hungarian artists. Their most recent works help visitors appraise their development since graduation, the creative directions they have taken since their diploma pieces. The first floor is dedicated to the four KOGART Prize winners, while the other two storeys present about thirty Hungarian artists, providing a cross-section view of the Fresh exhibition series, their own oeuvres, and recent trends in Hungarian contemporary art.
Please click here for further information!
FERDINAND HODLER: A SYMBOLIST VISION (09.09.2008. - 14.12.2008.)
Museum of Fine Arts 
The representative and monographic exhibitions of the Museum of Fine Arts provide an opportunity for Hungarian viewers to become acquainted with the greats characters of European art. Following Van Gogh, in 2008 the life’s work of Ferdinand Hodler will be presented. The last time a similar exhibition of Hodlers’s works was held was in Switzerland in 1983. Such a complete display of works by a foreign artist has, until now, never been held in Hungary.
Details: www.szepmuveszeti.hu
Opera
Fill your night with the magic of Opera or enjoy a unique ballett performance in one of the most beautiful Opera House of Europe. You can check the exact dates of performances on the following link or contact our concierge department on +36 1 4622185 : Opera Program
Concerts in Budapest
Let yourself enchanted by music during your stay. To see concert calendar please click... or contact our concierge department on +36 1 4622185