Edit Hambalkó passed away

Edit Hambalkó was born on 9 June 1931 in Csepel. She started her studies in a private music school with Mrs Dr József Lengyel at the age of eight; she was a student of Pál Kadosa, Katalin Nemes, András Mihály and Pál Járdányi at the Liszt Academy between 1949 and 1957. She was the piano teacher at the Béla Bartók Conservatoire in Budapest between 1958 and 1972, where she was Head of Department between 1972 and 1981.

She was an associate professor of the Budapest Department of the Music Teacher Training Institute of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, parallel with which she was teaching as a senior lecturer at the Liszt Academy since 1985. As an associate professor since 1995, she retired in 2001. She was a teacher to such prominent pedagogues and students as Edit Klukon, Gábor Eckhardt, Rita Wagner and Judit Kékesi.

She performed for ten years since 1957 as the National Philharmonic’s soloist but also gave several concerts both in Hungary and abroad as a chamber musician. She received the special prize of the Budapest International Liszt Piano Competition, then won the third prize of the Bucharest Enescu Sonata Competition with József Sepsey. Her name is linked with various world premieres and premiers of Hungarian pieces and Liszt works; she premiered among others Zoltán Horusitzky’s piano concerto, József Soproni’s and József Sári’s multiple piano pieces and the piano version of Liszt’s Via Crucis.

She received the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic in 2011.