In Hungary there are a number of singers which towers above the rest. That is amongst a few others Márta Sebestyén (Muzsikás) and also Irén Lovász.

Last-named singer and cultural anthropologist has an angel-like voice which she reveals solo and with groups like Makám and Teagrass. With those groups she makes generally a mixture of Hungarian folk, jazz, traditional and sometimes experimental music. Beside that she has done a couple of albums with only minimum accompaniment. Almost a capella she then impresses you with her intense voice. Her ninth album Égi Hang/Sacred Voice is the first of a four-part series, which will be followed by Noi Hang/Female Voice, Belso Hang/Inner Voice and Gyógyító Hang/Healing Voice. The link between these four albums is the idea that the human voice can have a healing power, because this is the most important ancient and universal function of singing by human beings. Music as a helping hand you could say.

Also on this new album she is accompanied in a minimum way. The Voces3 Ensemble supports her music with sacral and traditional singing, harmonium, psalteries and medieval harp and also a flutist/saxophonist participates. The pieces are based on traditional folk, psalms and Gregorian songs, which you here can hear back in magnificent arrangements. Sometimes the men of Voces3 sing without Irén, especially in the pieces sung in Latin. In an unequalled manner Lovász catches the soul of the Hungarian people in melancholic, sacral magnificence. Her music is a tribute to the women who have kept the musical traditions alive, whereas her own crystal-clear voice is already a celestial tribute to the human voice. Tradition, folk and traditional music meet in a dreamed sanctuary. Heaven never has been this close and tangible and certainly not in this superb way.

http://www.subjectivisten.org/caleidoscoop/archief/002474.php