Following Shekhinah (2023) and The Language of Flowers (2024), the joint band of Gábor Gadó and Veronika Harcsa releases a new album: as the title suggests, Yūgen continues to explore the mysterious, elusive beauty that lies beneath musical forms and sounds.

Gábor Gadó and Veronika Harcsa are two artists known primarily as jazz musicians, yet their work is increasingly shifting towards classical, early and contemporary music. Their musical encounter is already documented in two albums for BMC Records: Shekhinah (2023) presented Gadó’s most recent pieces with texts by Veronika Harcsa, while The Language of Flowers (2024) – honored with the Citizen Jazz ÉLU and Jazz Magazine CHOC awards – revived Gadó’s compositions written more than two decades ago to lyrics by Eszter Molnár, originally for singer Gábor Winand. Their latest album, Yūgen, continues to explore the mystical and elusive beauty that lies behind musical forms and sounds. The theme, taken from Japanese aesthetics, also encompasses numerous, delicately layered inspirations and cultural-historical references: among Gadó’s new compositions, we find a piece inspired by Béla Bartók’s music, while the track by guest composer András Soós draws on a medieval liturgical chant. Gadó commissioned Richard Robinson, a British writer and translator living in Hungary, to write the lyrics for the vocal songs; he evokes both Nietzsche and John Hersey, the first chronicler of the Hiroshima bombing. One of the band’s most distinctive features is that, after more than a decade and a half, Gadó is once again incorporating keyboard instruments into his work.

Gábor Gadó has been working with BMC Records for a quarter of a century, releasing an incredible number of more than 25 albums for BMC Records, including one of the label’s biggest hits, 2002’s Orthodoxia. After his famous French quartet, Gadó has recorded materials with many groups, and this ensemble was also formed on his initiative. Veronika Harcsa is the most popular Hungarian jazz singer in the country and the most recognized abroad. Her duo with Bálint Gyémánt has already released three albums on German labels, while BMC Records hosts her contemporary improvisational and classical projects such as Schubert NOW! (invited both to the jazzahead! and the Classical:NEXT showcase), the Modern Art Orchestra’s Bartók album, or Different Aspects of Silence with Kornél Fekete-Kovács, the Robert Balzar Trio and Dan Bárta. This lineup features musicians already familiar from Gadó’s other projects: Laurent Blondiau (trumpet) and János Ávéd (saxophone) represent the world of contemporary jazz, while Tamás Zétényi (cello) comes from the realm of contemporary classical music. They are also joined by one of the most prominent figures of the Hungarian free jazz scene, Máté Pozsár, adding entirely new dimensions to the band’s sound on piano and synths.