Csaba Király, pianist and organist

Liszt Award-winning concert pianist and organist.

Csaba Király was born in Komló in 1965. He graduated at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, as performing artist in 1989 (organ), and in 1990 (piano). His teachers were Mária Apagyi, Katalin Halmágyi, Zoltán Kocsis and Sándor Falvai (piano), as well as István Lantos and Ferenc Gergely (organ). Since 1980 he has won the first prize in four Hungarian and two International Piano Competitions: in 1980 in Nyiregyhaza, in 1982 in Bekestarhos, in 1985 at the National Piano Competition of the Hungarian Radio, in 1990 at Dohnanyi Piano Competition of Music Academy, in 1996 in Cagliari, and last but not least in 1997 in New Orleans.

Since his student years he has given concerts regularly both as pianist and organist. He has had concert engagements in nearly all European countries, winning great success in Japan, USA, Canada, South Korea and several Asian countries. He held worldwide piano masterclasses. His repertoire covers a wide range from the Baroque to contemporary music. Besides performing works by Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and Bartók, performing the latest modern compositions and improvisation plays a prominent role in his concert programmes. For improvisation he learned the professional basics from music teacher Maria Apagyi from 1975, and later as an active student of the Komló Art Workshop - founded in 1977.

In 1994 he got a certificate of merit from Artisjus for his outstanding activities in showing and dissemination of Hungarian music. Since 1989 he has made organ transcriptions of orchestral and choral works (e.g. Liszt: Danse Macabre, Les preludes, Hungarian Coronation Mass; Bach: Brandenburg Concertos; Verdi: Requiem; Mahler: Symphonies Nos. 1, 8; Schumann: First Symphony; Franck: Symphony D minor; Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4; Beethoven: Symphony No. 9), piano works (R. Strauss: Don Juan; Chopin piano etudes) which are played frequently at his concerts in Hungary and abroad.

In 2001 he won „Pro Urbe” award of Komló. Several times he has performed J.S. Bach’s and Liszt's complete organ works. Since 2001 he has been undertaking a huge series of one hundred concerts, lasting some years, of the complete piano music of F. Liszt. In 2003 Csaba Király has been awarded a Liszt Ferenc prize for his artistic activity. In 2004 he started series of benefit organ concerts for the restoration of the big organ of the Cathedral in Pecs (Hungary). In 2005 he established the First Pecs International Piano Competition in memory of Liszt Ferenc, in which he was one of the jury members. In 2006 he played Mozart's, in 2007-2008 Beethoven's complete piano sonatas in Pecs.

Since 1995 Csaba Király has been teaching piano at the Academy of Music in Budapest. He was a guest organ teacher in South Korea for a year. Since 2002 he has been an honorary teacher of the Martyn Ferenc Free School of the Arts in Pecs. From 2004 to 2007 he was the Director of the Institute of Music in the Musical and Visual Art Faculty at the University of Pecs. In 2004 he reorganized the Liszt Ferenc Society in Pécs, and became its leader. In 2005 he has been elected as the Secretary-general, in 2013 as the president of the Hungarian Liszt Ferenc Society. As a piano teacher he has taught several years at the Academy of Music in Budapest.