Dezső Ránki

Dezső Ránki was born in Budapest in 1951, graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1973, as a student of Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados.

At the age of eighteen, he won first prize at the International Schumann Piano Competition in Zwickau and has since performed regularly throughout the world. In five decades, he has given over three thousand performances, appearing in most countries of Europe, several times in North and South America, and every two or three years in Japan. In London, Paris and Tokyo alone he has given more than 50-50 concerts. He has played with many of the world's leading orchestras, including, to name but a few, the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Orchestre National in Paris, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and with renowned conductors such as György Solti, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, etc.

Chamber music has played an important role in his life. Since 1985 he has performed regularly with Edith Klukon both in Hungary and abroad, and they have given some 5,000 concerts of the best of the piano duo literature.

His awards include: Liszt Ferenc Prize (1973), Kossuth Prize (1978, 2008), Prize of Meritorious Artist (1984), Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau (1984), Béla Bartók-Pásztory Ditta Prize (1988), Distinguished Artist Prize (1990), Prima Primissima Prize (2005), Medal of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary with the Star (2006), Award for Hungarian Art (2007), Honorary Citizen of Budapest (2014), Honorary Citizen of Újbuda (shared with Edith Klukon, 2017), Artist of the Nation Award (2020).