Balázs Kocsár
The Liszt Prize awarded conductor was born in 1963. He completed his conducting and choral conducting studies at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest. Afterwards he became the student of the Music Academy of Vienna, where his master was Professor Karl Österreicher. He participated in master classes of Helmuth Rilling, Jorma Panula and Péter Eötvös.
In 1989 he obtained Third Prize as the best Hungarian participant of the International Conducting Competition of the Hungarian Television. In 1995 he won First Prize at the Franco Ferrara Conducting Competition organized by the Opera di Roma. From 1990 to 1993 he was conductor at the Szeged National Theatre (Hungary), then he became assistant conductor of Maestro Ervin Lukács at the Hungarian National Orchestra. Since 1992 he has been regularly conducting in the Hungarian State Opera. From 1993 to 1999 he was music director of the Csokonai Theatre in Debrecen (Hungary), and also worked as artistic director of the Debrecen Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kodály Choir. From 2011 to 2013 he was music director of the Budapest Spring Festival. He conducts mainly others in Italy, Germany, France and Australia.