Artist database

He was born in a musician-family, began to play the piano at the age five with Erna Czövek. He continued his studies with Klára Máthé at the preparatory class of the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, where he later studied between 1977 and 1983 with Pál Kadosa, Zoltán Kocsis, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados. After graduation he won scholarship to Munich and Moscow for two years. Since 1987 he has been a professor at the piano faculty of the Music Academy in Budapest.
He has won several prizes at international piano and chamber music competitions, like in Usti-nad-Labem, Budapest, Glasgow, Monza, Terni, Zwickau, Leeds, Munich, Montreal, Brussels. His radio and television recordings include BBC, RIAS (Germany), AVRO and TROS (the Netherlands), RAI, CBS, and the Hungarian Radio and Television. Mr. Szokolay has a large repertoire in all styles and plays a great deal of chamber music. He gave master courses in England and Hungary, and was the president of the Liszt-Bartók Piano Competition in Sofia in 1995. In 1997/98 he was a guest professor at the Yeungnam University in South Korea.

He was awarded the Liszt Prize in 2001 and the Bartók-Pásztory Prize in 2024.