Zoltan Kocsis, the multiple award-winning virtuoso pianist, conductor, composer and musical director of the Hungarian National Philharmonic died Sunday at the age of 64.
Kocsis was born in Budapest in May 30, 1952. He started his musical studies at the age of five and continued in conservatory, studying piano and composition. In 1968, he was admitted to the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he was a pupil of Pal Kadosa, Ferenc Rados and Gyorgy Kurtag, graduating in 1973. In the meantime, he made his first concert tour of the United States.
Kocsis won the Liszt Prize in 1973, and the Kossuth Prize in 1978. He also co-founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983, and worked as musical director of the Hungarian National Philharmonic for years.
He has performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Philharmonia of London, and the Wiener Philharmoniker. American critic Harold Schonberg praised Kocsis' extraordinary technique and fine piano tone.
