Pannon Philharmonic

Zoltán Kocsis was born in 1952 in Budapest, began playing the piano at age five. From 1963, he studied piano and  composition at Béla Bartók Vocational Secondary School of Music; and then he got admitted to Franz Liszt Music Academy in 1968 as a student of Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados.
His international career began by winning the Beethoven Competition of the Hungarian Radio, at the age of 18. In a course of a few years he became famous at the international music scene, as a shooting star. He has performed with leading orchestras around the world, among them with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest star in the prestigious international music festivals: Edinburgh, Paris, Tours, Luzern, Salzburg, Prag, Menton, etc.; and he worked together with such excellent conductors as Claudio Abbado, Christoph von Dohnányi, Edo de Waart, Charles Mackerras, Lovro von Matacic, Charles Dutiot, Herbert Blomstedt, or Michael Tilson Thomas. In 1983, with Iván Fischer they founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Since 1987, he also performs as a conductor and parallel to his pianist career, he does compose, as well. He took over the direction of the National Philharmonic Orchestra in the fall 1997; since then, the repertoire of the ensemble has enhanced according to his artistic conception. Under his conduct, many works Hungarian premieres have been being performed. On 26January 2004, at the “Midem” in Cannes (France) , at  the world's largest music trade fair, Zoltán Kocsis got a special prize, a Lifetime Achievement Award; in 2005,  the Hungarian government paid him a Kossuth Pprize for the second time, recognizing his work.