Béla Bartók was one of the most influential composers of the 20^th century, who evolved a completely individual style that fused folk elements with contemporary sounds and classical forms. His compositional methods were in many regards similar to those of the latest electronic music -he took journeys to several countries to make field recordings of local folk music with his Edison phonograph -the then state-of-the-art “audio sampler”- and then incorporated those “samples” into his original compositions.

How could have Bartók worked if he’d had access to today’s technology? 

Joining forces with violinist Luca Kézdy and trumpeter Ben Neill (USA), eNerd offers answers to this exciting question by emulating a workflow that starts from a selection of Bartók’s original field recordings, then continues with the creation of original piano pieces in his style based on these recordings and finally converts them into electronic pieces using a set of custom-made performance tools that enables fully interactive communication between real musicians and computers.

The Bartók Update 2.0 project is based on Bartók's least known field recordings, which he made in North-Africa in 1913. The show was premiered at the Contemporary Arts Festival (CAFe Budapest) in October 2016.

Ben Neill (the mutantrumpet), Mike Gotthárd (guitar), Luca Kézdy  (violin), Miklós Lengyelfi II. (bass guitar) and Andor "UFO" Gábor (percussions).