Kálmán Dráfi was born in Budapest in 1955. He studied at the Liszt Academy of Music, where his teachers included Mihály Bächer, Pál Kadosa, Ferenc Rados, György Kurtág, András Mihály and Melinda Kistétényi.Between 1974 and 1976 he continued his training at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, in the class of Bella Davidovich.Since 1977 he has been teaching at the Liszt Academy of Music, and since 2012 he has been Head of Department in the Keyboard and Harp Department at the Liszt Academy. In 2002 he received his DLA degree.Kálmán Dráfi has launched generations of pianists on their careers. The Liszt Ferenc Auditorium in Senlis, founded by György Cziffra, was an important milestone in both his international career as an artist and as a teacher; there he was a leading teacher of young musicians. He teaches courses at the Tokyo Gedai Academy, Toho University, Osaka Ondai University and at the Toho University Vienna branch.
He has given concerts with the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra under the baton of János Ferencsik, András Kórodi, Kenichiro Kobayashi, Ervin Lukács, Ádám Medveczky and János Kovács, and with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Mariss Jansons. He has performed with the Boston Philharmonic, and Seiji Ozawa, while his chamber partners have included Miklós Perényi, Dénes Kovács, András Kiss and Géza Kapás.
He has conducted the Failoni Chamber Orchestra, the Hungarian Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and the Hungarian State Opera Symphony Orchestra on several occasions. He regularly performs at the Liszt Academy.
He is the winner of numerous prizes, including the Special Prize of the Liszt-Bartók International Piano Competition in 1971, the Special Prize for the Best Bartók Interpretation at the Liszt-Bartók International Piano Competition in 1976, and the prestigious Liszt Ferenc Prize, awarded by the State in 2012.