At a press conference on January 20th the results of the first round of the 2011 New Hungarian Music Forum were announced. Eight works ( four chamber and four orchestral pieces) by seven young Hungarian composers (Marcell DARGAY, Balázs HORVÁTH, László SÁNDOR, Péter TORNYAI, Árpád SOLTI, Judit VARGA and Ákos ZARÁNDY) reached the final, which will take the form of a public gala concert to be given on February 8th, 2011 in the Palace of Arts, Budapest. The chamber works will be presented by the UMZE Chamber Ensemble, and the orchestral pieces by the Concerto Budapest Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Rácz and András Keller. There and then the jury will decide on and announce the order of the prizes.

The competition is organized by the BUDAPEST MUSIC CENTER and the PALACE OF ARTS, with the support of the Hungarofest Klassz Zenei Iroda. The organizers wish to pay tribute this year to Ferenc Liszt, who was born 200 years ago; they therefore required the composers to submit works with themes inspired by Liszt's art.

The three prizes in each of the two categories, works for orchestra and for chamber ensemble respectively, have been donated by the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office. As an additional prize, Editio Musica Budapest has undertaken to publish the eight works presented in the final, and to promote them abroad; the Fidelio internet portal has offered valuable media space, and the Ferenc Liszt Music University will organize an individual evening concert featuring one of the finalists. The Budapest Music Center is going to issue as a promotional record the programme of the final, the gala concert.