Artist database

This is the Artist Database of BMC, which includes information about composers, musicians, orchestras, choirs and groups that are either Hungarian or Hungarian by origin or live in Hungary, as well as information about releases recorded with them.

Szenthelyi Miklós


violin

Place of Birth
Budapest
Date of Birth
1951
Orchestra

 
24 January 1951 Budapest

Violinist, founder of the Chamber Orchestra of Hungarian Virtuosos, professor of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.

Between 1964 and 1968 he was pupil of Margit Lányi in the Béla Bartók Secondary School for Music. In 1968 he was accepted to the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where he graduated 1973 as pupil of Dénes Kovács. The same year he became assistant teacher of the institution, and he’s been teaching there since 1978 as lecturer and since 1989 as reader. He’s been head of department of the special talents since 1978.

In the beginning of his career he successfully participated at many international contests. With Judit Szenthelyi he came in second place at the Leó Weiner Sonata Contest in Budapest (1971), and with András Schiff he came in first place (1973). In 1975 he won first prize at the Violin Contest of the Hungarian Radio.

From 1975 he was soloist of the National Philharmonics. In 1988 he founded the Chamber Orchestra of Hungarian Virtuosos – he’s been artistic director, soloist and since 1999 he’s also been conductor of the orchestra. He held master courses at the Greensboro Festival (U.S.), in Finland and in Brazil. He performed in almost every country of Europe, as well as in North- and South-America, Asia, Australia and Africa. On the 12th April 2004, which was the 35th anniversary of the beginning of his career, he gave a monumental concert in the Great Hall of the Music Academy, where he played concertos by Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky and Brahms.

He was awarded with the Liszt Prize (1986), the MSZOSZ Prize (1990), the Officer’s Cross of Merit of Order of the Hungarian Republic (1994), the Vilmos Tátrai Memorial Ring (2000) and the Kossuth Prize (2008).

Since 1976 Miklós Szenthelyi is playing a Joseph Guarnieri master violin (1723) that was a gift of the Hungarian State.