Two lecturers at the Liszt Academy awarded the Kossuth Prize

The members of the quartet: violinist Ferenc Bangó, cellist György Éder, violinist and first violinist Attila Falvay, as well as violinist and violist Zoltán Tuska shared the Kossuth Prize. The artists were awarded in recognition of their chamber music career, which is exceptionally valuable for Hungary and enjoys great international acclaim and especially as an appreciation of decades of artistic work dedicated to the high-quality interpretation and international promotion of classical Hungarian music culture and the works of Zoltán Kodály.

The Kodály Quartet

President János Áder presented the Kossuth and Széchenyi Awards, as well as the Hungarian Order of Merit, together with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and László Kövér, Speaker of Parliament, on Monday in Parliament.

Attila Falvay, Bartók-Pásztory Prize-winning artist and the first violinist of the Kodály String Quartet, was born on September 7, 1958 in Budapest. Between 1969 and 1974, he studied at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest and graduated from the Liszt Academy in 1980. In 1979, he won second prize at the Szigeti József International Violin Competition and the following year he took the first prize at the Hubay Competition. In 1980, he studied in Aspen, USA, and then continued his studies at the Vienna Academy of Music from 1980 to 1985 with József Sívó. Since 1980, he has been first violinist of the Kodály String Quartet; from 1989 to 2005, he was the leading concertmaster of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and from 2005, he has been the concertmaster of the National Philharmonic Orchestra. He plays a Stradivari violin made in 1731 called "Hamma". Falvay has about 70 recordings of his solo and chamber formation performances, and there are numerous radio recordings of his performances. As a soloist, he had several tours in Japan and various European countries. From 2006 to 2010, he was a professor of violin and chamber music at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland and since 2015, he has been teaching at the Department of Chamber Music of the Liszt Academy.

Zoltán Tuska was born in Budapest on October 29, 1967; he graduated from the Liszt Academy in 1991, and continued his studies in 1992 with violinist Loránd Fenyves in Canada. In 1993, he was the concertmaster of the Weiner-Szász Chamber Orchestra, and from 1998 to 2001, he was the leader of the Solti Chamber Orchestra. Starting from 1998, Tuska was the first violinist of the Danubius String Quartet. He has performed in several foreign chamber orchestras (Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, Cappella Andrea Barca) and regularly participates in chamber music festivals (Salzburg, Ittingen, Vicenza). He taught a master class in Bolzano. Between 1998 and 2010, he was a member of the Mikrokosmos String Quartet, and currently plays in the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Since 2012, he has been a lecturer at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest and the Chamber Music Department of the Liszt Academy.