Juries

Piano

Dr. Dávid Báll

・Associate Professor
・Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music

Dr. Báll Dávid is one of the habilitated piano professors of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. In 2023 he was appointed as a visiting professor of the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China. A three-time Fischer Annie Scholarship winner pianist, awarded also the Magyary Zoltán Postdoctoral Scholarship, Hungarian Republic Award, Universitas and Ari Kupsus fellowship. He has given concerts in the greatest halls of Europe, North- and South-America and Asia, such as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Salle Pleyel, Teatro Colón and ElbPhilharmonie. He gave masterclasses in Poland, Georgia, Latvia, Estonia, Italy, Vietnam and China.

In 2015 he has played the Piano Concerto by Schönberg at the season opening concert of the Hungarian National Philharmonic, led by Zoltán Kocsis, and he has been a partner of world-famous musicians such as Iván Fischer, János Kovács, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Heinz Holliger and Klaus Thunemann. Dr. Báll made recordings for Channel Classics, Toccata Classics and Hunnia Records.

Tamar Bardavelidze-Töre

・Georgian pianist

Pedagogue and cultural entrepreneur Tamar Bardavelidze-Töre has established an international career distinguished by artistic excellence, educational leadership and a deep commitment to nurturing the next generation of musicians. Born in Tbilisi into the family of the renowned Georgian musicologist Lali Kakulia, she has devoted her professional life to performance, pedagogy and the development of international cultural initiatives connecting young artists with leading musicians and institutions worldwide.

After graduating from the Zakaria Paliashvili Central Music School for Gifted Children in Tbilisi in 1998, she continued her studies at the Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire under the guidance of Professor Alexander Garber. Following the award of a scholarship from the Government of the Republic of Türkiye, she moved to Ankara, where she conducted research in musicology at Gazi University under Professor Eflatun Neimetzade. In 2010, she enrolled in the Master's Degree Program in Piano Performance at the Hacettepe University State Conservatory, studying with Professor İrem Bozkurt and Professor Binnur Ekber.

Throughout her artistic development, Bardavelidze-Töre has participated in numerous masterclasses and international artistic programs, including the Internationale Konzertarbeitswochen in Goslar, Germany, where she worked with the distinguished pianist and pedagogue Professor Arie Vardi. She has also collaborated with prominent musicians and educators including Professor Tengiz Amirejibi, Professor Tamara Poddubnaya, Professor Yeşim Alkaya, Steinway Artist Aisa Ijiri, Maestro George Babuadze and composer Mai Fukasawa, while actively participating in a wide range of regional and international festivals, conferences, symposiums and educational projects.

Alongside the works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff, she maintains a particular artistic affinity for Georgian classical music. Through performances, educational projects and international collaborations, she actively promotes the music of Georgian composers, including Alexi Machavariani, Gia Kancheli, Vazha Azarashvili, Elizbar Lomdaridze, Kakha Tsabadze and Giorgi Shaverzashvili. In recent years, she has collaborated closely with contemporary

Georgian composers, including Kakha Tsabadze and Giorgi Shaverzashvili, whose works have been written specifically for her and for her students.

As both pianist and pedagogue, Bardavelidze-Töre has developed numerous international collaborations with ArtePiano Italy and the United Kingdom, King's College School Wimbledon, the Tokyo International Piano Association (TIPA), and the Georgian Composers Union. She regularly appears in solo and chamber music concerts in Türkiye, Georgia, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan. Between 2013 and 2022, she served as Pianist-in-Residence at the Panora Center in Ankara.

Since 2018, she has served as Piano Pedagogue in the Music Education Program of the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts at Bilkent University. Her students have participated in prestigious international festivals and educational programs including the Tianjin Juilliard Piano Festival, Winterreise Internationales Musikfestival Deutschland and Tbilisi Piano Fest, where they have had the opportunity to work with distinguished musicians and pedagogues including Ronan O'Hora, Antonietta Notariello, François Lambret, Dr. Elmar Lindemann, Dudana Mazmanishvili, Bernd Goetzke, Klaus Hellwig, Xiaohan Wang, Claudio Martínez Mehner, Alexander Garber, Andrius Žlabys, Nicolas Bringuier. Many of her students have received awards at international competitions and have continued their studies at distinguished institutions, including the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot.

In 2025, she founded TAMARART Georgia, a cultural organization based in Tbilisi dedicated to identifying, supporting and promoting talented young musicians through high-level educational and artistic opportunities. As Founder and Artistic Director, she leads a variety of projects designed to connect emerging performers with internationally recognized artists, pedagogues and institutions.

Among the organization's principal initiatives is the Ankara Masterclass Series, through which distinguished professors and internationally acclaimed musicians are invited to Ankara for masterclasses, concerts and educational events.

She is also the founder and artistic director of annual orchestral projects in Tbilisi that provide young pianists with the rare opportunity to perform in the city's historic concert halls alongside professional orchestras and distinguished conductors.

A respected adjudicator on the international music scene, she regularly serves on the juries of piano competitions and festivals in Türkiye, Georgia and abroad. She holds a permanent position on the jury panel of the internationally recognized ArtePiano International Competition in Castelnuovo di Farfa (Italy). In recognition of her contribution to music and music education, she was included in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Georgian Music in 2022.

Prof. Dr. Judit Gábos

・Hungarian concert pianist

・piano professor at the Music Institute of Eszterházy Károly Catholic

University of Eger. In 2003 received DMA in piano performance from the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and in 2012 obtained a habilitation also in piano performance from the Liszt Academy. Played numerous live solo and chamber music recitals at the Hungarian Radio. In Europe gave orchestral, solo and chamber music concerts in Belgium, Finland, Serbia, Spain, Romania. Guest professor and Fulbright grantee at universities in the United States, also toured the US several times. Outside Europe and the North American continent, also performed in Indonesia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile.

Strings

Dr. Ádám Banda

・Associate professor
・Head of the Violin Department

・Liszt Academy of Music

He was born in 1986 in Balassagyarmat. At the age of 13, he was selected to enter the Preparatory Class for Extraordinary Young Talents of Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy of Music as a student of professor Eszter Perényi. His diploma concert was in October 2009 in the Grand Hall of Franz Liszt Academy of Music, and he received his diploma in June 2010.

He won numerous national and international competitions, including the 1st prizes of two Hungarian national violin competitions in 1998, the Ferenc Halász Prize in 2001, the 1st Prize and Grand Prize of the Ede Zathureczky National

Violin Competition and the absolute First Prize of the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition in 2003. He received the Pro Europe Award in 2004. He won the second prize and the jury’s special prize at the Yampolsky International Violin Competition in Moscow in 2006. He won the first prize of both the Dénes Legány Competition and the Szigeti-Hubay International Violin Competition in Budapest, where he was also awarded with the Hubay Special Prize in 2007.

He was honored with two major national awards, the Junior Prima Primissima and the Artisjus Award in 2007, and received the Hungarian government’s prize for outstanding young talents – Youths of March Award – in 2009. He won the Grand Prix of ECHO Rising Stars in 2011, which has earned him the possibility of appearing in the most prestigious concert halls of Europe in the 2012/13 season. In 2012, he received the Hungarian Bronze Cross of Merit.

Since 2012, he has been teaching at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and also has been invited to teach on masterclasses in several places. In 2018, he received a doctorate at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. So far, he has had concerts throughout Europe as well as in the US, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and Japan, with many renowned artists, including Zoltán Kocsis, András Schiff, Miklós Perényi, Pinchas Steinberg and Péter Frankl.

Dr. Judit Szabó

・Senior lecturer
・Liszt Academy of Music

CHAMBER MUSIC DEPARTMENT, SCHOOL FOR EXCEPTIONAL YOUNG TALENTS Chamber Music, String Quartet Academic degree, university position: DLA, senior lecturer.

Major jury members:
Tokyo, Kioi Hall, 2012
London, Wigmore Hall, 2012
Washington, Library of Congress, 2013
Chicago, Mandel Hall, University of Chicago, 2013
Montreal, Pollack Hall, McGill University, 2013
Vienna, Konzerthaus, 2014
Buenos Aires, Teatro Colon, 2014
Nantes, “La folle Journee”, 2015
Budapest, Liszt Academy Grand Hall “Legendary concerts”, 2015 Shanghai, Symphony Hall, 2016
Manchester, RNCM Concert Hall, 2017
Veszprém, “Auer Festival”, 2017
Fertőd, Esterházy Castle, 2017
Padova, Sala dei Giganti, 2017
Budapest, Liszt Academy Grand Hall, 2018
Pannonhalma, “Arcus Temporum”, 2018
Budapest Liszt Academy Solti Hall, 2018
Salzburg, Schloss Mirabell, 2019
Budapest, Festetics Palace, 2019

Dr. Bence Asztalos

・Head of the Music Institute

・Eszterházy Károly Catholic University

Prof. Dr. Bence Asztalos studied violin and singing at the Liszt Academy Budapest,

continuing his education in the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien in K.S.

Robert Holl’s Lied-class. He holds DLA doctorate degree and habilitation.

Mr. Asztalos has played in the violin section of the Budapest Festival Orchestra (GMD Iván

Fischer) since 1994, working with conductors, such as Sir Georg Solti, Charles Dutoit, Kurt

Sanderling etc. He has performed with the ensemble at the most important concert venues on

the international music scene, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the

Musikverein in Vienna, the Royal Albert Hall and Barbican Center in London, and the

Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Regularly returning guest at the Salzburger Festspiele,

Edinburgh International Festival, Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, BBC Proms. He has contributed

to more than 50 recordings for Channel Classics, Philips, Teldec, Decca, A passionate

performer and advocate for chamber music, founding member of the Aztalos-Szabó-Báll

Piano Trio. Chamber music audiences have heard Mr. Asztalos in performances throughout

the Wiener Konzerthaus, leading concert halls of Japan and many more venues. He has been a

featured artist on several radio and television broadcasts (MezzoTv, Arte).

Mr. Asztalos’ singing career allowed him to develop close relations with the Deutsche Oper

am Rhein Düsseldorf and the Hungarian State Opera, where he sang Don Fernando/Fidelio,

Ariodates/Xerxes, Bartolo/Figaro etc. As an opera and lied/oratorio singer he has recorded

with Teldec, Hungaroton, Bongiovanni and Warner.

In 2010 he was appointed as associate professor at the University of Szeged Department of

Music, and in 2019 he was appointed as the head of the Music Institute of the Eszterházy

Károly Catholic University in Eger.

Wind

László Gulyás

Deputy Mayor of Eger

László Gulyás is the Deputy Mayor of Eger in charge of cultural affairs. He is also the

director and trumpet teacher at the Ferenc Farkas Music School in Eger. In addition,

he is a member of the Eger Symphony Orchestra, the music ensemble of the

Gárdonyi Géza Theater in Eger and Snidero Jazz Quartet.

Vocal