Zoltán Kocsis

Hungarian pianist, conductor and composer Zoltán Kocsis was born in Budapest on May 30, 1952, and died there on November 6, 2016. He was one of the most ardent interpreters and defenders of his compatriot Béla Bartók. A graduate of the Franz Liszt Conservatory, he began his international solo career in 1970 after winning the Beethoven Competition. The youngest winner of the Franz Liszt Prize in 1973, he also won the Kossuth Prize in 1978, teaches at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest and regularly records works by Bartók, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Grieg and Rachmaninov. Open to contemporary music, he premieres works by Romanian composer György Kurtág(Quasi una fantasia and the Double Concerto for piano and cello) and directs the Budapest New Music Studio. In 1983, together with conductor Iván Fischer, he founded the Budapest Festival, whose orchestra he led from 1987 onwards. Ten years later, he took over the direction of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra. Married to pianist Adrienne Hauser, he is notably the composer of the symphonic poem Tchernobyl.