Ilona Prunyi was born in Debrecen on 1 May 1941. She started playing the piano at the age of 6. She attended the piano major of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music between 1958 and 1963, and her teachers were József Gát and András Mihály. She was still a student of the Academy when she participated in the international Liszt-Bartók piano competition in 1961, and was given a certificate of merit.

She obtained her diploma in 1964 and started working at the Academy as a music teacher, where she is now an associate professor. In 1974 she delivered her first concert. Since then, she has been regularly performing, both as a solo player and at orchestra concerts in Budapest and other Hungarian towns.
She has also given concerts in countries of Europe (England, Germany, Austria, France, Czechoslovakia, Romania), as well as in Canada and China. She often appears as a chamber musician, too, and is a frequently employed artist of the Hungarian Television and Radio.

She took part in the piano master courses of Yvonne Lefebure as a fellow artist in Paris several times. HNH International Limited of Hong Kong has commissioned her to give first performances of works of lesser known composers since 1988. She has had 44 albums released throughout the world, most of them on the Marco Polo, Naxos and Hungaroton labels.

She gives several solo performances in Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary every year. Her repertoire is rather broad, besides interpreting pieces from the Classical and Romantic period, she also includes work of French and Russian composers of the early 20th century in her programmes. In recent years she has been giving first performances of contemporary Hungarian composers as well (Emil Petrovics, József Sári, István Láng, Máté Hollós). She has assembled her solo programme of unknown Hungarian compositions introducing pieces of the Liszt era of 19th century Hungarian Romanticism (Ábrányi, Bertha, Beliczay, Mosonyi, Goldmark, Volkmann, Sipos, Gaál, etc.)

Her rendering of the piano concerto by Emil Petrovics, which the composer dedicated to Ilona Prunyi, was a major success, and she regularly performs it at her concerts. She has been named �a major figure of the Dohnányi revival unfolding in Hungary� for her extensive knowledge of Dohnányi-pieces. (Festival Journal, 2001)

Among her permanent partners are Zoltán Kocsis, Jenő Jandó, László Fassang, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Gulyás, László Polgár, Csaba Onczay, Etelka Csavlek, the Tátrai String Quartet, the New Budapest String Quartet, András Kiss, Eszter Perényi, Anatolij Fokanov, Ingrid Kertesi, László Fenyő and György Liener.

Prizes, acknowledgements:
1985 Certificate of Merit by the Minister of Culture
1992 Award of Excellence of Hungarian Performing Artists
1993 Prize of the Minister of Culture �For Serving Culture�
1993 Artisjus Award
1994 Liszt Award
1997 Artisjus Award
2003 "For Ferencváros" Commemorating Medal

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