Péter Nagy, the first prize-winner in the 1979 Hungarian Radio Competition, is one of the youngest representatives of what has internationally become known as the brilliant new generation of Hungarian pianists. Displaying outstanding musical gifts in his early childhood, he was admitted at the age of eight to the Special School for Young Talents of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, where his teachers were Ferenc Rados and Klára Máthé. At the age of eleven he won the second prize of the International Concours in Usti nad Labem (Czechoslovakia) in 1971. In 1975 he became a regular student of the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, while in addition attending the master-classes of Amadeus Webersinke in Weimar in 1975 and 1976, as well as the course of Malcolm Bilson held in Budapest in 1979. In the same year he won the top prize in the Hungarian Radio Piano Competition.
Graduating with distinction from the class of Kornél Zempléni at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in 1981, his international career began in 1977, with successful performances in Finland, Yugoslavia and Salzburg in 1979. In the previous years he made extensive tours in the German Democratic Republic and in the Soviet Union. His participation in the Menton Festival in 1979 marked his début in France. In 1980 he was acclaimed at the Bordeaux Festival of Young Soloists and on the Bratislava International Rostrum for Young Interpreters. Between 1984 and 1987 he undertook further study with György Sebök in Bloomington, Indiana.
Péter Nagy's world-wide concert tours have included recitals in Australia at the Sydney Opera House, in the Louvre Auditorium in Paris, in Tokyo, Yokohama, Sapporo and other cities in Japan. He has also appeared as soloist with such ensembles as the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, the Thessaloniki State Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician he has performed at major festivals, including Aix-en- Provence, Athens, Bastad, Blonay, Davos, Divonne, Llandaff, Kilkenny, Edinburgh, Turku, Joensuu, Kuhmo, Moritzburg, Stockholm, Helsinki, Ojai and the Marlboro Music Festival. Péter Nagy is the regular pianist of the young violinist, Leonidas Kavakos, in 1988 forming a trio with Finnish cellist Martti Rousi. In recent years he has collaborated with violist Kim Kashkashian, giving duo recitals in Europe and in the United States. As part of his exclusive contract with HNH International Ltd., the Naxos parent company, Péter Nagy made an extensive tour of the Far East. He has made several recordings for Hungaroton, Delos, Naxos, BIS and ECM labels. In 2001 he received the prestigious Liszt Award.
