Sometimes the personal touch that Illinois State University is known for has a way of reaching across the globe to other continents.
Zétény Nagy was a college student in his hometown of Budapest, Hungary, looking for his next move academically when he discovered the VR work of Dr. Roy Magnuson, associate professor in the School of Music, during an online search. Nagy reached out, and Magnuson took the time to reply.
“Zétény contacted me via my website for my VR composition software solsticeVR,” Magnuson said. “He was curious about using it in his own composition practice and getting a copy of it for his home institution in Hungary. We started talking via email and eventually set up a Zoom together with his instructors.
“During one of the conversations I suggested that if he was interested in coming to the U.S. I would love to talk to him about our Creative Technologies (CTK) program.”
Things worked out so well that, in May, Nagy will graduate with his master’s degree in CTK. Magnuson has gone from his teacher and mentor to friend.
“I basically came here to work with him, and I have been working with him ever since,” Nagy said.
Both are composers, but their work together has been as graduate assistant and faculty member collaborating entirely on VR projects. Nagy considers himself an extended reality (XR)—which encompasses augmented and mixed virtual reality—developer/researcher.
“It has been such a meaningful experience seeing him grow as an artist in our program, learn about living on his own in the U.S., and helping him create a diverse portfolio that he can take out into the world after graduation,” Magnuson said.
To master the English language, Nagy was influenced by video games, The Lion King, and Hip-Hop music—each of these helped him become fluent. Now 23, he was drawn to music early. He started piano lessons at around age 6 after seeing the instrument in a local shop. He was trained in classical music and spent a decade playing and learning.
“I stopped at 16, so about 10 years give or take,” he said. “It was a really good experience because it taught me what I don’t want to do in music. The music adheres to rules that appear to be set in stone but are completely arbitrary.”
“VR is sort of the Wild West in technology where no one knows where it’s going, so it’s a very exciting time. I’m very happy to be doing this.”
Zétény Nagy
He remained open to music and to famous composers. György Kurtág, a Hungarian pianist and composer of contemporary classical music who recently turned 98, had a profound impact on Nagy and his musical journey.
“Kurtág is one of the leading figures in 20th century music, and he had a bunch of piano pieces written for children,” Nagy said. “Children were encouraged to play his music with their fists and their elbows and to sit on the keys putting their entire bodies into it.”
Nagy was about 7 when he encountered Kurtág’s music for the first time, and it got his attention.
“That stuck with me because I really liked how it pushed the boundaries,” he said. “And I feel like that is what music should be about, not just wallowing in rules that someone came up with 400 years ago that we all take for granted now.”
At 18, Nagy found his way to electronic composition after his barber told him about a course being taught in his hometown. Already a technology enthusiast, he was convinced after attending an open house at the school that combining music and computers was a perfect fit for him.
“I was so in love with experimental electronic music that when I walked out, I immediately called my mom and told her: ‘I know what I’m going to be when I grow up,’” Nagy said.
And he’s good at it. Recently he placed third, winning the bronze award in the Student 3D Audio Production Competition at the largest sound technology convention and conference in Europe. His category was contemporary composition.
“The piece that I entered was a composition I had completed before coming here to ISU, so it was an older work of mine,” Nagy said.
Would There Be a Void? is the title of the piece. He describes it as a contemporary composition specifically composed for HDLA or high-density loudspeaker arrays, which simply means a lot of speakers were involved. Originally 18 minutes, he edited it down to 12 minutes to meet contest guidelines. He even found some healing in the creative process.
“It is a purposefully hard-to-listen-to, abrasive, abstract sound composition,” Nagy said. “The main inspiration for it was coming to terms with a feeling of insignificance, and it was an outlet for me during a very difficult time period in my life. It helped me come to terms with a lot of things.”
In the piece, Nagy said he was asking the question: If you knew someone who disappeared, would they leave any sort of literal trace?
Thanks to the support of Illinois State, including the Office of Student Research Pinion Travel Grant, the Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts Student Project Grant, and a grant from the College of Fine Arts, he was able to travel to Germany for the awards ceremony.
“It was a great experience,” Nagy said. “I met some absolutely incredible researchers and attended some pretty groundbreaking presentations. I got some previews of stuff that’s not even on the market yet. There was great networking going on, and I made some great connections.”
A big reason Nagy came to Illinois State was because back at home he didn’t have access to all the technology he needed for experimenting with music and VR.
“Our facilities in CTK for VR are mind blowing,” he said. “We have computers I could never have dreamt of using.”
Nagy added that his Illinois State colleagues are amazing, and he loves being surrounded by like-minded people working on projects that involve so much experimentation.
“VR is sort of the Wild West in technology where no one knows where it’s going, so it’s a very exciting time. I’m very happy to be doing this.”
