Balázs FÜLEI is a Franz Liszt, Artisjus and Junior Prima award winner pianist and Steinway Artist with more than thirty piano concertos in his repertoire, with all the concertos by Beethoven, Brahms and Bartók among them. He is an assistant professor at the Liszt Academy and has been the Head of the Department of Chamber Music since 2015. He is the founder and artistic director of the Echo Summer Academy held every year in the Károlyi Castle in Fehérvárcsurgó.
Balázs has also created a new genre thanks to his excellent lecturing, communicating and verbal skills. At least in Hungary, as the tradition of so-called “storytelling” concerts in America dates back several decades and is linked to Leonard Bernstein. His abilities got noticed by the Bartók Radio, too: since September 2020, every second week, he has been the host of a radio programme called Quartet, which is very popular.
The artist is connected to Bartók in many ways: as one of the busiest performers of the 2016 Memorial Year, he gave many concerts in Hungary and abroad. In Bangalore, India, he has given a lecture on Bartók and folk music to an audience of two thousand people; in Vietnam he was the first performer to play Bartók’s pieces. He has entered the international music scene at an early age. He had his debut solo recital in 2008 at the Carnegie Hall in New York considered the most prestigious concert hall in the world; he has given concerts in the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow, the Kioi Hall Tokio and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam as well. He has played together with leading symphony orchestras in Hungary and abroad. Balázs Fülei has already performed in almost every country in Europe, Israel, the United States of America, Australia, Japan, China and Vietnam. He has regularly been giving concerts with his permanent formation, the Auer Trio; he has been a frequent partner of the Kodály Quartet and have toured with them in India. He was the soloist of one of the world’s leading ensembles, the Camerata Bern, in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy.
He has recorded four solo albums: in 2013, the works of Bartók and Grieg; in 2015, pieces by Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy and András Gábor Virágh’s compositions connected to the Moon theme. In 2019, he recorded the penultimate sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert, and released a Liszt album. The first CD recorded with the Auer Trio was published in 2019. In 2022 further four new albums are to be released.
