Hungarian
pianist Balazs Szokolay was born in Budapest in 1961. His mother is a
pianist and his father is a composer and professor at the Ferenc Liszt
Academy. Szokolay began learning the piano when he was five and in 1970
entered the preparatory class of the Budapest Music Academy where he completed
his studies with Pal Kadosa and Zoltan Kocsis in 1983. He later spent
two years at the Academy of Music in Munich on a German government scholarship.
Szokolay made an early international appearance with Peter Nagy at the Salzburg Interforum in 1979, and in 1983 he substituted for Nikita Magaloff in Belgrade in a performane of the Piano Concerto No. 1 of Brahms. In September 1987 he made his recital debut at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He has won a number of important prizes at home and abroad, including success in the prestigious 1987 Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition.
Szokolay is a soloist with the Hungarian State Orchestra and has given concerts in Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. He has recorded 11 CDs and is on the faculty of the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest.