Born in Kalocsa (Hungary) on 12th November 1936. He studied double bass at the Béla Bartók Conservatory, Budapest and was an orchestral musician in the Hungarian State Philharmonic Orchestra 1957-1967. He studied conducting with Dean Dixon, Jean Martinon, Albert Simon and Gerhard Wimberger at Mozarteum in Salzburg, taking his diploma 1969. He pursued composition studies on the contemporary music vacation courses in Darmstadt, with György Ligeti and Iannis Xenakis among his teachers. He came in 1970 to Sweden, where initially he continued his career as a conductor. In 1972 he won the international competition for young conductors in Florence and the national competition in Gävle. He became a Swedish citizen 1976. At present he is in charge of production, teaching and programme development of computer music at the Electro-acoustic Music Foundation in Sweden.

Since 1972, Tamas Ungvary’s music has been frequently played at European and American festivals, and he himself has given innumerable work shops and seminars the world over. His first computer music composition, Seul, was performed in 1972 at the ISCM Festival in Reykjavik, and this success was followed by Basic Barrier at the ISCM in Rotterdam in 1974 and Traum des Einsamen at the 1978 ISCM in Helsinki. Two of his works received honourable mentions at the international competition in Bourges: Akonel (1979) and Gipsy Children’s Giant Dance with Ili Fourier (1987).

He has taken a close interest in the psychological and social problems arising in the chain of communication between composer and listener, and between composer and computer. Basic Barrier is just this kind of reflection of the composer’s thoughts confronted with technical and aesthetic problems. He has developed several real-time programs for composition which also allow the composer a certain measure of intuitive interpretation (CHOR, ILI). In 1982 he used CHOR to write the composition Ite, missa est, in memory of his compatriot Rudolf Maros. One of his most powerful computer pieces in recent years is L’Aube des Flammes (1984). Incrementum was his approach to instrumental music. The basic form is predetermined, but the details change with every performance. COTEST, the computer language created by Ungvary, is used in Akonel II (flute and recorded tape), first performed in Bourges in 1978 by Robert Aitken. The two extremes - instrument and recorded tape - achieve an increasingly homogeneous pattern as the work proceeds. The flute part develops into a relaxing, decorative melodic line.

Other works for instrument and recorded tape include Interaction No. 2 (1979) and Präludium für Orgel und Band (1987), Sinus-Coitus for piano and tape, and Melos No. 3 (1982) for violin and tape. Ungvary’s music represents a fascinating synthesis of the extremes of contemplative/aggressive and protracted/compact.
Stig Jacobsson 1987