Photo: Liszt Academy / László Mudra
Academic degree, university post: senior lecturer
Date, place of birth: 1985, Budapest
Studies:
1999-2003: Bartók Béla Secondary School of Music, Cimbalom Department (teacher: Ilona Szeverényi Gerencsérné), Composition Department (teacher: István Fekete Győr)
2003-2008: Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music Budapest Teacher Training Institute Cimbalom Department (teacher: Ilona Szeverényi Gerencsérné)
2008: cimbalom teacher, chamber musician college diploma
2004-2009: Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music Composition Department (teacher: János Vajda)
2011: composer, composition teacher university diploma
2014: cimbalom artist university diploma
from 2014: DLA studies
Recordings:
Recordings with Hungaroton and Hungarian Radio.
Professional activities:
His interests are focused on 20th century and contemporary music performance. Over the past 10 years he has performed or presented solo and chamber works by numerous Hungarian contemporary composers.
He places particular emphasis on presenting the works of young composers. He has taken part in all the composers’ competitions of the New Hungarian Music Forum; earlier he participated (as composer and as performer) in all the Youth Contemporary Music Evenings. He is a significant performer of works written for the cimbalom by György Kurtág, who in October 2009 composed a solo piece for him.
He has performed at the Budapest Spring Festival, the Szombathely Bartók Seminar and the Kaposfest on numerous occasions, both as soloist and as chamber musician. In the past few years he has attended virtually all the Festivals of Music of Our Age and the New Hungarian Works concert cycle.
He is a frequent guest at European music festivals. He regularly plays early music arrangements at his concerts.
He has played together with the Slovene, Warsaw, Cracow, Lodz, Valencia Philharmonic Orchestras, the Helsinki Avanti chamber orchestra, and virtually all the symphony orchestras of Hungary.
He has worked with conductors Olivier Cuendet, Péter Eötvös, János Fürst, András Keller, Zoltán Kocsis, János Kovács, Ingo Metzmacher, Zoltán Rácz, Zsolt Serei, István Silló, László Tihanyi, Gergely Vajda, Tamás Vásáry, Walter Weller, Antoni Wit; and performers such as Gábor Csalog, Csaba Klenyán, Claire Chase, Evelyn Glennie, Helena Winkelmann and Natalia Zagorinskaya.
Orchestra membership:
Regular musician with UMZE Chamber Ensemble, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Hungarian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Concerto Budapest and ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien.
From 2010, member of the Ludium ensemble led by Gábor Csalog and András Kemenes.
Teaching activities:
from 2008: teacher of composition, solfège, music theory, transposition, score reading at the King St Stephen Secondary School of Music
from 2015: lecturer (chamber music) at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music
Other activities:
2011: Piano Concerto – premiere
2013-14: Two fairy tale songs – premiere
2015: National Rácz Aladár Cimbalom Competition – member of jury
Prizes, awards:
2009: Artisjus Prize
Contact: andrasszalai85@gmail.com