Apolka BONNYAI started playing the piano at the age of 10 with teacher Ella Miklósné, then continued her studies at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in the class of Katalin Schweitzer and Gábor Eckhardt. She graduated as a pianist in 2001 from the Liszt Academy of Music under the tutelage of Balázs Szokolay, András Kemenes and Dénes Várjon, and received her DLA degree in 2013.

She has won numerous scholarships and international music competitions. As a winner of the Grand Prize Virtuoso and the Golden Classical Music Awards international music competitions, she has performed at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and Carnegie Hall in New York. Winner of the Weingarten Fellowship, she studied at the Birmingham Conservatoire with Professor Malcolm Bilson, and then at Montclair University in the United States under David Witten and Mark Pakman, with the Terplan Research Fellowship.

She performed with great success at the 9th Kyoto International Music Festival in Japan, which was recorded on CD. Other festival invitations include the Yamaha Artist Liszt Festival and the Hungarian Arts and Humanities Festival in New York, as well as the Cziffra Piano Festival. She has participated twice in the V4 Piano Festival in Sárospatak, where she was also artistic director in 2019.

She has performed as a soloist in prestigious venues such as the Palace of Arts, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wiener Konzerthaus, the Mozarteum, the Alti Hall and many other concert halls in Europe and America. She regularly makes recordings in the Márványterem of the Hungarian Radio.

Since 2001, Apolka Bonnyai has been a piano teacher at the Szent István Király Music Secondary School.

She is the founder and artistic director of the Carpathian Basin Classical Music Festival.

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.

Hungary’s most popular male choral ensemble was founded in 2002 by Tamás Bubnó, Meritorious Artist and winner of the Liszt Prize. At first the group specialized in the remarkably diverse music of the Byzantine Christian Rites and achieved success with its repertory in Hungary and abroad alike.
The choral group started working on the Hungarian male choir repertoire from the beginning through the male choir liturgy of Transcarpathian priest, János Boksay. From there a straight path led to Liszt’s little known, but extremely rich works for male choir, then to Bartók’s brilliant male choral pieces. Besides the musical heritage of the Byzantine tradition, the works of the great Hungarian composers became the other main pillar of the repertoire.
As a result of numerous appearances at choir festivals at home and abroad, several contemporary composers became attracted to the unique sound of the Saint Ephraim Male Choir. Thanks to this, many of them composed works for the ensemble. Today Saint Ephraim performs contemporary works at each of their concerts.
The eight-member ensemble gives concerts within Hungary and world-wide on a regular basis. Their own series, Orientale Lumen (Light of the East), features well-known soloists and ensembles. They have issued 13 CDs so far. The members are versatile chamber musicians, who also make transcriptions and arrangements, and compose works for the ensemble.
The artistic directors are Tamás Bubnó and Lőrinc Bubnó.

Andrea started her musical studies in Szombathely. After graduating from music high school, she continued studying the piano at the Győr Music College where she received her degree as a piano teacher and chamber musician. Subsequently she was admitted to the piano department of the Munich Richard Strauss Musikakademie. Then she received her piano degree with distinction at the Dortmund Music Academy of the Hochschule für Musik Detmold.

Her mission as a pianist is to make an ever wider public for classical music. Thus the Music Imagination programme started with her participation in 2004, then in 2018 she initiated the Magical Music Movement, through which children can turn their attention to the values and beauties inherent in music. In this work she is making use of other genres of art as well. This movement so far has reached almost one a half million children within and outside Hungary, including several places where children never before had the chance to experience live classical music.

Since 2018 Andrea Várnagy has regularly given four-hand piano concerts with her daughter, Lili Farkas, a classical piano student at the Academy of Music. Their unique mother-daughter .duo creates an atmosphere of intimacy among the audience, providing true inspiration for the children listening to them.

Andrea Várnagy has built close connections with Subcarpathia through her concerts, and this region still has a special place in her heart. Since 2011 she has been giving regular concerts, organized music camps and courses, and supported the musical life in this region severed from Hungary. Since 2018 she has had a permanent link with Franciscan friar, Csaba Böjte,. and has joined in the musical life of Transylvania as well.

She places great emphasis on developing talent. She developed her own unique method that she employs in her piano courses and which is also available online. Andrea’s repertory prominently features Franz Liszt’s pieces for piano four-hand.

Andrea Várnagy is considered an outstanding piano four-hand player. Her musical activity has been recognized with the Budapest Brand Award and the Pro Familiis Award. In 2020 she was awarded the Liszt Prize.