What did Singing Youth sing in the 1950s and what do they sing today? What messages are conveyed through their songs from positions of power? What ideas are embodied by the works of art commissioned and put on display in public space? Which artists are frequent performers at political party events? What do the favourite bands of the regime sing about? Do you sing along?

Makris Agamemnon’s statue, Singing Youth was erected at the passage leading to the People’s Stadium in 1953 and it has been standing there until this day along with other statues, surviving the regime change, when many artworks made in the socialist era were removed from public space. The stadium was torn down and a new one, the Puskás Arena was built, re-using crushed concrete from its predecessor. Singing Youth, double life-size aluminium figures of two girls and a boy with a flute, bear witness to the last 70 years of Hungarian history full of turbulent times, during which music and culture in general remained important in young people’s lives and was a key tool for politicians to communicate or promote their ideas, ideologies.

The People’s Stadium (1953) represented the success of the first five-year plan, the Puskás Arena is the symbolic building of the System of National Cooperation. They were both built using public funds; the first dedicated to the people, the second to the nation. These two terms seem similar but they convey different interpretations of us. Singing Youth took popular movement songs from 1945-56 and pop, rock songs from 2010-21 (associated with the regime) as a departure point along with public speeches from those in power to make a collage of text and music dealing with these interpretations. Máté Szigeti’s original music masterfully evokes both time periods; while taking its distance, it offers a commentary on these at the same time. This is enhanced by references to other, temporally and stylistically more distant musical idioms. The process results in familiar, yet not quite familiar melodies that can easily become earworms.

The three figures of Singing Youth are doubled on stage: our world as represented in these songs, come to life through the performance of six young singer-performers.