Old and new images

Yesterday we were invited to Pécs City Hall. City Hall was built in the early 20th century, directly at the main square, Széchenyi tér. It has a dignified classic character. High ceilings, charm, style, but also some of the waggishness of the pre-communist era.I found Mayor Zsolt Páva prepared to accompany me to the caravan to personally apply the official ‘Pécs 2010’ sticker to the map. During our walk from City Hall to Dom Square I had the opportunity to ask him what he considered the soul of Pécs. The city has a history of readiness and hospitality. Mayor Páva tells me that during the Balkan Crisis, in the early 1990’s, the shots from nearby Croatia could be heard. During the war Pécs took many refugees for which it was granted the Unesco Peace Award in 1998.

After adding the Pécs 2010 logo Mayor Páva, together with Jo de Viet and myself, applied the new Utrecht logo to the caravan. One day after my departure from Utrecht on January 3rd, the city officially announced its new brand image at the Utrecht City Theatre. So in retrospective it is now proudly visible on Utrecht’s mobile representation.

Apart from the early Christian burial chapels, the cathedral and the famous Gázi Kászim Pasa Mosque, Pécs has another important cultural attraction. Hungarian painter Tivadar Csontváry, born in the same year as Vincent van Gogh, has his own museum here. It is difficult to characterize his style. If I take the liberty to give it a try, I would say it is a naive and colorful style of painting, with some pieces of enourmous magnitude (like ‘Mary’s source in Nazareth’). Csontváry was self-taught. Especially his sun- and moonlight are of exceptional quality.

That same evening I did my very first Hungarian concert. The basement of the newly opened teahouse ‘ExoTee’ at 28 Kiraly Utca had been turned into an atmospheric theatre, with a mix of Hungarian and Oriental decoration. It is a cool experience to be singing in Dutch, knowing that hardly anyone in the audience understands the lyrics. Yet my message seems to be clearly understood. Through the music, the expression and some explanation in English the images of songs like ‘Spring’ (Jump), ‘Spreek je uit’ (Speak up) and ‘Domstad’ (Domcity) seem to be understood by the Hungarians. Because of all the surprises and improvisation of the last few days, the language, the adrenaline of the journey so far and the fact that this is the very first concert ever at ExoTee, I take the liberty to try out a brand new song, titled ‘Nieuw licht’ (New light). It is about new images. The start of a new album!