György Kurtág

György Kurtág (; born 19 February 1926) is a Hungarian composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. Kurtág was an academic teacher of piano at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1967, later also of chamber music, and taught until 1993. For decades, Kurtág and his wife Márta gave recitals on one piano of selections from his ten-volume collection Játékok and his Bach transcriptions. Life and career György Kurtág was born on 19 February 1926 in Lugoj, Romania, to Jewish Hungarian parents. He spoke Hungarian, Romanian, and German early. From the age of 14, he took piano lessons from Magda Kardos and studied composition with Max Eisikovits in Timișoara. He moved to Budapest in 1946 and became a Hungarian citizen in 1948. There, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he met his wife, Márta Kinsker, as well as composer György Ligeti, who became a close friend. His piano teacher at the academy was Pál Kadosa. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Ferenc Farkas, chamber music with Leó Weiner, and theory with Lajos Bárdos, and graduated in piano and chamber music in 1951. He married Márta in 1947 and their son was born in 1954. He received his deg