Dr. Emőke SOLYMOSI-TARI (PhD) is a music historian and an ordinary member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. She completed her studies in Budapest. She gained a piano teacher’s certificate at the Teacher Training Instituted of the Liszt Academy of Music, then graduated in music teaching, and in musicology, in the University Section. She also has a higher vocational qualification in cultural management. From 1988 she began working as a music journalist. From 1995 for more than two decades she taught musical repertoire at the King Saint István Grammar School of Music; since 2001 she has taught music history at the Liszt Academy, from 2021 as an associate professor. It was here that in 2013 she defended her doctoral dissertation on the stage works of László Lajtha. Since 2014 she has been director of the Art Theory Section of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
She has been researching the work of László Lajtha since 1988. Two books bear her name: „…magam titkos szobája” (Hagyományok Háza, 2007), and Két világ közt (Hagyományok Háza, 2010). She the editor of Zsuzsanna Erdélyi’s book A kockás füzet [The chequered booklet] (Hagyományok Háza, 2010). She edited László Fábián’s writing about László Lajtha under the title Ős és utód nélkül (Gondolat Publishers – National Széchényi Library, 2015). She took part in the research group that was the first to discover the history of the National Music School. These research findings were published in a volume entitled A Nemzeti Zenede in 2005. As well as scholarly publications she has written articles, made radio and television programmes, compiled an internet database of Lajtha’s works, and has held several exhibitions about the composer’s life and work.
She is known as an editor and presenter of concerts and complex arts events, as part of the Pastorale and the Felfedezőúton [Path of Discovery] series between 1997 and 2021 she presented nearly 600 events. She was awarded the Lajtha László Prize (2002), the Zugló Education Prize (2005) and the Szabolcsi Bence Prize (2012). In 2013 she was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit.