43rd National Táncház Festival & Fair • 5–7 April 2024
Issue:
Starting page: 16
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Interview with folk singer Szvorák Katalin. Born in 1958 in Losonc/Lučenec in south-central Slovakia, she grew up in the nearby village of Pinc/Pinciná. As a talented Hungarian singer she moved to Hungary to take a position as singer with the Honvéd Ensemble in the early 1980s. Today she lives with her family in the Pilis region outside of Budapest, loves being a grandmother and maintains a busy performing schedule. She has made 38 recordings to date. Amongst many awards, she received Hungary’s Kossuth Award in 2013. She discusses the irony and difficulties of being a Hungarian – as a minority – in Czechoslovakia, then after moving to the ’mother country’ – being labelled by the Hungarians as the "Czech chick”."They were obliged to accept me in the mother country [Hungary], but I was only tolerated in quarantine". She firmly believes in the healing power of singing. By Grozdits Károly.