Peter Toth (Hungary/USA)
Guest Artist

Biography

Hungarian pianist Peter Toth is one of the most recognized artists of his generation. He has concertized in most countries in Europe, including Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Germany, Russia, France, Holland, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. In addition, he performed in Japan, South Korea, Peru, Costa Rica, China, Australia, and the United States.

As a competitor, Mr. Toth has won top prizes at numerous piano competitions, such as the American Paderewski Piano Competition (2013), the Franz Liszt International Piano and Voice Competition in Los Angeles (2010), and the Franz Liszt International Piano Competitions in Budapest (2001) and Weimar (2000). His first released CD recording won the Grand Prize of the Hungarian Liszt Society (2006). He also won a special award for the best performance of a major romantic work by his outstanding interpretation of Brahms’s First Piano Sonata at the Southern Highland International Piano Competition in Australia (2011). In 2013, he retired from competing, dedicating himself entirely to the concert stage.

Mr. Toth is a regular guest artist at various piano festivals, such as the Festival de Musique au Château d’ Excideuil and the Festival Musique en Vallée du Tarn in France. In addition, he was invited to serve on the jury panel of the Franz Liszt International Piano and Voice Competition in Los Angeles (2014) and the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition in Baltimore (2015). He has been member of the American Liszt Society since 2011.

Mr. Toth has lived in the United States since 2009. He has recently earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student of Anton Nel (2012-2015). He also completed an artist diploma program at Texas Christian University under the tutelage of Tamas Ungar (2009-2012). Prior to moving to the United States, he had studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music (major teachers include Gyorgy Nador, Balazs Reti, and Laszlo Bihary) and the Bela Bartok Music Conservatory (major teacher: Jozsef Csontos) in his native Hungary. His scholarly activities have included the investigation of the progressive harmonic language of Franz Liszt’s piano music. His scientific work, “Symmetrical Pitch Constructions in Liszt’s Piano Music”, was published in the Spring of 2016.

In spite of being a strong advocate of Franz Liszt’s music, Mr. Toth has a wide and diverse repertoire, ranging from J.S. Bach to contemporary music, with a particular focus on the piano music of the 19th century. He is an enthusiastic interpreter of the works of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms. Mr. Toth is a piano faculty member at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison, New Jersey).