The Liszt Academy reopened its Concert Centre on Liszt’s birthday yesterday with a special gala performance. The event followed a four-year €40m project to restore the 1907 Art Deco venue located on Franz Liszt Square in Budapest. The main hall, which has hosted performances by such names as Sviatoslav Richter, Yehudi Menuhin and Leonard Bernstein, has been completely restored along with a new Georg Solti chamber opera house, green rooms and catering facilities.

Founded by Liszt in 1875, the institution today boasts a faculty of 168 and more than 800 students. The Academy and Concert Centre are now to be split, however, into two legal entities, each with its own logo, in an effort to maximise the Centre’s potential as a leading 1,100-seat concert venue. Steve Reich, Isabelle Faust, Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis will each perform there over the next few months.

Artists appearing at yesterday’s gala concert included Barnabás Keleman and his wife Katalin Kokas, who delighted the audience at this year’s Gramophone Classical Music Awards ceremony, held at London’s LSO St Luke’s, with their performance of several of Bartók's Duos for Two Violins. You can watch the performance on Gramophone's YouTube Channel. Keleman won this year’s Chamber Gramophone Award for his recording of Bartók Violin Sonatas with pianist Zoltán Kocsis.