Vasary, Tamas

conductor, pianist

Mr. Vasary was born in Debrecen in 1933. He started his career in music as a prodigy; he was Lajos Hernádi's student at the Liszt Ferenc College of Music from 1947. In 1948, he won the Liszt Competition in Budapest, then he became a soloist of the 'Filharmónia', and works as the assistant of Zoltán Kodály. He left the country in 1956, and after winning several international prizes, he embarked on a solo career. He travelled around the world from the Festival Hall of London to Carnegie Hall in New York as a highly acclaimed star. He performed on stage with György Széll, Ferenc Fricsay, and the most prestigious orchestras, and he made solo records and orchestral recordings one after the other. Since 1969, he has lived in London. He has been the musical director of the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra and a regular guest conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra since 1979. He is a regular performing artist at the Salzburg Festival and the Edinburgh Festival.
He has conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra several times. He came home after the political transition, and became the leading conductor of the Symphonic Orchestra of Hungarian Radio and Television and the director of music of Hungarian Radio in 1993. He was decorated with the Officer's Cross of the Honour of the Hungarian Republic in 1994, and he received the Kossuth Prize in 1998, and the Honorary Medal of the President of the Republic in 2003.

Franz Liszt - The Medium and the Media