Hungarian musician to receive Philippine Foundational Peace prize

MANILA, Philippines — State-awarded Hungarian folk musician József Terék will be awarded the Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Award for his efforts to promote international peace and understanding through music.

Terék will be the second Hungarian national to be awarded by the Manila-based Sino-Phil Asia International Peace Awards Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 2015.

The first Hungarian recipient was József Bencze in 2020 for his translation of Jose Rizal’s poem, “Mi Ultimo Adios” into Hungarian. A marker of the poem was unveiled at Fort Santiago, Intramuros in 2017.

As Bencze was not able to receive the prize due to the COVID-19 lockdown, he will join Terék and 17 other laureates at the ceremony to be held at the Fiesta Pavilion Grand Ballroom of the Manila Hotel on Feb. 16.

Terék, was awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit in 2014 for “the arrangement and promotion of folk songs and folk music of the Tápió region, and for his music education and performing activities.”

During his visit to the Philippines next month he also intends to give a free recital of the tarogato, a traditional Hungarian woodwind instrument, to Filipino music students and the public as his contribution to the commemoration of the golden anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Hungary this year.

In 2018, Terék visited the Philippines for the first time with his folk music band for a concert tour at the University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, International School of Manila and De la Salle-College of Saint Benilde. In 2020, he returned alone for concerts at UP, University of San Carlos in Cebu and Ateneo de Davao University.

In 2017, at the request of the local government of Pest County in Hungary, Terék arranged more than a hundred folk songs collected by Zoltán Kodály from a total of nine settlements in the county – Dömsöd, Gomba, Gyón, ?rszentmiklós, Páty, Szigetszentmiklós, Tinnye, Tök and Váchartyán – and published a CD of them on the 50th anniversary of Kodály’s death that year.