Gábor Farkas, piano
Classical Bridge International Music Festival Academy
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Gábor Farkas (1981) graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest in 2005. He finished his DLA studies in 2014 at his Alma Mater under the mentorship of Zoltán Kocsis and Tamás Vásáry. At the same time he was a student of Prof. William Grant Naboré at the International Piano Academy Lake Como.
He made his debut at the Carnegie Hall in 2016 as the winner of the 2015 Audition of New York Concert Artists & Associates. In 2009, he won the “6. International Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar” and the “Audience’s Prize” and an award for best performance of Haydn Sonata, in 2003 he received the first prize of the “Hungarian National Radio’s Piano Competition”,in 2001 he got 3rd prize in the International Liszt Piano Competition, in Budapest and in 2000 he was the winner of the “Bartók Béla Piano Competition” in Baden bei Wien. In March 2012 he got the Franz Liszt Award (the highest Hungarian State Award for artists). In May 2009 he received the “Gundel Art Prize”, in November 2008 he was given the „Prima Junior” prize; and in March 2008 he was awarded a special state prize “The best young artist of the year”. In October 2015 he became an Honorary Citizen of his birthcity of Ózd.
In the past years along the concert halls of Hungary he performed in the most famous concert halls such as Teatro la Fenice (Venice), BOZAR (Brussels), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Musikverein Saal (Vienna) Auditorio National de Musica (Madrid), NCPA Concert Hall (Beijing), Seoul Art Center (Seoul), Oriental Art Center (Shanghai) and Bunka Kaikan (Tokyo). He was invited to prestigious international festivals, such as the “Budapest Spring Festival”; the “International Piano Forum”, Berlin; the “Schumann Festival, Zwickau; the “Bach Festival” Thuringia; “Pélerinages-Kunstfest Weimar”, “Musicathlon”, Beijing; “Piano Festival”, Vilnius; “Kaposfest”; “Franz Liszt Festival” in the Castle of Gödöllő, Hungary. So far, he has worked with such worldwide known conductors as Zoltán Kocsis, Ádám Fischer, Olli Mustonen, Philippe Bender, George Tchitchinadze, Olaf Henzold, Kobayashi Ken-Ichiro, Gábor Takács-Nagy and Tamás Vásáry.
His debut CD recording entitled „An evening with Liszt” was published by Warner Music in November 2008, which won the prestigious “Grand Prix” as the best Liszt recording of the year 2009 given by the Franz Liszt International Society. His second album was a live recording of the Official Opening Concert of the Liszt Year, 2011 with Zoltán Kocsis and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, published also by Warner Music in July 2011. He made recordings for Brilliant Classics and Hungaroton Records as well. His latest CD containing virtuoso opera and song transcriptions of Liszt was published by the Steinway & Sons in January 2017 in the USA after an extremely successful album release concert held in
the Steinway Hall, New York. His new CD of works of Schumann by Hungaroton is available from May 2017, also in the same Year he recorded Ferenc Farkas’s Piano Concerto, with the Hungarian MÁV Orchestra and Gábor Takács-Nagy, what was released by the Toccata Classics, London.
He has recently been awarded the title of „Steinway Artist” by the local presentation of the company in New York, Hamburg and Budapest.
He started to teach at the piano faculty, as a professor, at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, since 2005.
It’s a great honour for him to be appointed as a piano professor of the Tokyo College of Music in Japan.