Zsombor Tóth-Vajna

ZSOMBOR TÓTH-VAJNA, keyboard specialist and conductor, is one of the leading figures of the young musician generation in Hungary. He studied playing the harpsichord and the organ at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest with Miklós Spányi, where he graduated with the highest honours. He continued his studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and was taught by Menno van Delft (harpsichord, clavichord) and Richard Egarr (harpsichord, fortepiano), and on the organ by the legendary Jacques van Oortmerssen. He also holds a degree in medicine from Semmelweis University, Budapest. He has given recitals in many European countries and in the United States of America as a soloist (harpsichord, organ, clavichord, fortepiano), conductor and as continuo in various orchestras. He is the founder and artistic director of Hungarian baroque orchestra Harmonia Caelestis in Budapest, and he is a passionate piano four hands player with his twin brother, Gergely. He attended keyboard masterclasses with Pierre Hantai, Skip Sempé, Ton Koopman, Masaaki Suzuki, Malcolm Bilson, Lorenzo Ghielmi, Christine Schornsheim, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Rita Papp and Hans Fagius. Zsombor Tóth-Vajna was awarded Semmelweis University’s most prestigious Kerpel Prize in 2013 and was elected among the 50 most talented young Hungarians by the magazine La Femme in 2015. Zsombor also received the grant for the talented youth in Hungary and was awarded in 2019 with the prestigious Bach Prize. So far, he has released nine solo albums, for the label Hungaroton. He has held master classes at home and abroad and is a jury member of international competitions. Since 2020, he has been a research fellow at the Royal College of Music in London. His research area is the performance of late 17th-century English keyboard music.