Halmos Béla Programme Office

The National Cultural Fund of Hungary was established by the Hungarian Parliament and became the supreme institution responsible for funding cultural life in and outside Hungary during the past 20 years. The main objectives of the NCF include stabilising funds and involving new incomes to increase its available tender budget. There are colleges (working like branches) that take care of different kind of cultural topics.

NKA Halmos Béla Programme is one of them – it was launched in 2016.

Our goals include supporting the young talents in folk music, promoting the finest folk music artists and their performances in Hungary and abroad, as well as supporting the programmes of the táncház (Hungarian folk dance event). We have a special focus on promoting Hungarian folk music on international musical markets. This organization is a professional, open-minded, openly and transparently operating, effective, integrative, committed and friendly supporter of the Hungarian and transborder folk music and the preservation of traditions and the continuation of living cultural traditions. Our aim is to show that Hungary has a lot of exciting, dynamically changing and developing folk- and world music artists who are exciting, marketable and worth paying attention to. NKA Halmos Béla Programme is a very effective, exemplary governmental patronage-programme.

The Programme is named after Halmos Béla (1946-2013), who was not just a folk musician and teacher, but also a researcher of the folk music in Hungary. From the ’70-s he played an important role in the Táncház (‘dance-house’) Movement in Hungary. Since 2011 the Táncház model is accepted by the UNESCO as a teaching method of folk music, singing and dancing.