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.

An open-air festival held in Liszt Ferenc Square on Sunday ushered in this year’s third World Bartók Competition. The order in which competitors will appear in the preliminaries was decided on the opening day of the series of events organized by the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.

23 year old Laura Milisavljevic from Novi Sad, Serbia will be the first contestant on the preliminary of the  Bartók World Competition, at 14:00 in 9 September 2019

Drawing Lots & Mini Concerts in the Liszt Ferenc Square

Debut recitals and concert opportunities for the contestants in Hungary and in New York.

The following 38 contestants passed the qualifying round and are invited to Budapest to begin the preliminary in 9 September:  

Congratulations to all of you who sent their video recordings to the qualifying round of Bartok World Competition Piano 2019.

Application period is over for the competiton. Contestants will soon be notified of the jury's decision about live rounds.

You can apply until 30 April for the Bartók World Competition 2019 Piano Competition!

There is still time to make the application video for Bartók World Competition – Piano 2019.

Ever since winning the first edition of the Bartók World Competition in 2017, Cosima has felt at home in Budapest. Last month she arrived at the Liszt Academy at the invitation of the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, an orchestra she is familiar with since playing with them during the final. The violinist has preserved all her youthful openness and enthusiasm, while also having amassed huge experience since our first interview in 2017. This latest portrait of Cosima Soulez Larivière sketches out her experiences and impressions during the past 18 months.