The Hungarian pianist and conductor Tamás Vásáry gave his first public performances at the age of eight. He studied with Ernst von Dohnányi and Józef Gát at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest and later served as assistant to Zoltán Kodály. He won first prize in the Franz Liszt Competition in Budapest in 1948 and was also a laureate of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw (1955), the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris (1955), the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1956), and the Rio de Janeiro Competition (1957). His international career took off after 1960, in the wake of his immensely successful debut in the Royal Festival Hall in London. He has performed with the world’s leading orchestras and most eminent conductors. He has made twenty recordings, mostly for Deutsche Grammophon. He has conducted over 100 orchestras. In England he was music director of the Northern Sinfonia (1979-1982) and principal conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta (1989-1997). He was music director of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1993 to 2004. Tamás Vásáry has been awarded many prizes and distinctions, including the Bach and Paderewsky medals, the Kossuth Prize, the Millennial Kölcsey Prize, the Gold Medal of the President of the Republic of Hungary, and the Hungarian Heritage Prize. In 2012 he received UNESCO’s Mozart Medal. He is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music and of the Royal College of Music in London and is also a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (France).