Artist database

1st February, 1952 Pécs - 4th July, 2023, Budapest

Pianist, one of the most outstanding performers of standard classical music. His repertoire consists of the complete piano sonatas by Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, as well as of Mozart's 27 piano concertos. He is equally known as great interpreter of works by Liszt and Bartók. Being a versatile pianist, he frequently plays as chamber musician, and he is also known for making a huge number of records.

At the age of six he began to play the piano with his mother, and then continued his studies in the Music School of Pécs (1960-1968) as pupil of Margit Weininger and Mariann Polgár. In 1968 he was accepted to the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music Budapest where he was student of Katalin Nemes and later of Pál Kadosa.

At the beginning of his career he gained success at a number of international piano contests. He won third prize at the Beethoven Piano Contest (Budapest, 1970), second prize at the György Cziffra Contest (Versailles, 1972) and at the Dino Ciani Contest (Milan, 1975). He came in first place at the Piano Contest of the Hungarian Radio (1973) and in the chamber category of the International Piano Contest (Sidney, 1977). He completed his studies in 1974 and ever since he’s been teaching at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music and he’s been soloist of the Philharmony. His international career launched at the beginning of the early '70s. He has performed in many European cities, but he had the chance to play in the USA and in Japan. He has worked with such great conductors as János Ferencsik, Ádám Fischer, Lamberto Gardelli, András Ligeti, Giuseppe Patané, Zoltán Peskó, Jurij Szimonov and Antoni Wit.

International professionals valued many of his albums with appreciating critics in such magazines as Gramophone, Fanfare, CD Review or Penguin Guide. In 1992 he was awarded with the Grand Prize of the Liszt Society for a record on which he plays the posthumous piano concerto by Liszt. He recorded the complete piano works by Bartók, the complete piano sonatas by Beethoven, the complete piano sonatas and piano concertos by Mozart, as well as J. S. Bach's Wohltemperiertes Klavier, the complete piano sonatas by Haydn, the piano concertos of Grieg, Schumann, Dvořak and Brahms, and piano works by Liszt and Schumann.

Throughout his career, Jenő Jandó has been awarded many times. He received the Liszt Prize (1980), the title Merited Artist (1987), the Bartók-Pásztory Award (1995), the Kossuth Prize (1997), the Hungarian Classical Music Award (2004) and the Béla Bartók Memorial Award (2006).

He died on the 4th of July in Budapest.