The 2021 Bartók World Competition for String Quartets will commence with a ceremonial drawing of lots at 5pm on 25 October. In keeping with the tradition of the Liszt Academy’s international competitions, the first ensemble to perform in the preliminaries, which begin on 26 October, will be announced then.

15 string quartets made it to the preliminary of Bartók World Competition in October 2021

33 ensembles submitted their entry online for Bartók World Competition for string quartets this year

Since the pandemic has made it difficult to prepare for the competition, we extend the deadline to 15 June 2021.

On the 140th anniversary of the birth of Béla Bartók, a commemoration of the milestone anniversaries of a career, of understanding, of love: László Vikárius, professor at the Liszt Academy of Music and head of the Bartók Archives of the Institute for Musicology, evokes our great predecessor.

Violinist Ami Oike, who has won a competition in Japan with Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2, accepted an invitation from the organisers of the Bartók World Competition just a few days ago to join the jury for the 2021 String Quartet Competition.

Okamoto Shinsuke in first place, Korean competitors Noh Seung Ju and Kim Jonghoon in second and third place.

Prize winning works will be played by the most outstanding young Hungarian string quartets.

It is now on the website of bartokworldcompetition.hu

348 valid applications of string quartet pieces were submitted by the official deadline.

Registration fee can be also paid by credit card from 13 June on Bartok World Competition

Composers under the age of 40 are invited to enter Bartók World Competition by 10 August, with new pieces composed for string quartet.

Lithuanian pianist Mūza Rubackytė divides her time between Vilnius, Paris and Geneva. Indeed, she is a welcome guest on every continent, and her home country has recognised her with a Medal of Honour, among other awards. As a member of the jury of the Bartók World Competition and as the Director of Music of the Vilnius Piano Music Festival, she has presented a special prize to the winner of the competition, Ádám Szokolay: an opportunity for him to perform in the Lithuanian capital in November 2021.

He was born in the United States and lives there, but speaks perfect Hungarian and has been drawn to Bartók’s music since the very beginning. Peter Klimo took the stage with Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 at the orchestral finals of the Bartók World Competition.

At 21, Ádám Balogh has already been a prize winner at a number of international piano competitions and a guest soloist with acclaimed orchestras. He first appeared with the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 2010. The youngest competitor in the Bartók World Competition, he played Liszt’s Concerto for Piano in A Major in the orchestral finals.

Ádám Zsolt Szokolay played Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at the orchestral grand final of the Bartók World Competition and was later declared the winner at the gala evening. After the awards ceremony, he said he had managed to put all his ideas into practice at the competition and felt that the firm focus he experienced there would assist him in his career. At present, he is in the process of honing his skills as a student at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar and is convinced that Bartók’s music demands an open-hearted approach.

The jury for this year’s Bartók World Competition is headed by Kenji Watanabe, one of Japan’s best-known pianists, who is also noted for his authentic interpretations of Liszt and Bartók. Currently a lecturer at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he studied at the Liszt Academy in the 1980s, where he learned to speak Hungarian, and he believes that his command of the language has helped him a great deal to uncover the inner logic of Bartók’s musical world.

Liszt Prize-winning pianist Kálmán Dráfi believes that anyone who can give an excellent performance of Bartók can play almost anything else and that therefore one of the greatest geniuses of the 20th century ought to receive a higher stature in the repertoires of Hungarian pianists. A department head at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Dráfi is a member of the jury for the Bartók World Competition, which is expected to decide late Saturday night who wins this year’s piano category.