Bálint Kruppa

Bálint Kruppa started playing the violin at the age of seven, which was also when he joined the Schola Hungarica Gregorian children’s choir led by László Dobszay. From the age of eleven he studied at the Special School for Exceptional Young Talents of the Liszt Academy under the tutelage of Eszter Perényi, who remained his most important mentor throughout his years at the Academy. He also studied musical composition. Academic study plays an important part in his life, so since 2016 he has been studying at the Liszt Academy Doctoral School, where he has chosen the violin works of Stravinsky as the theme of his doctorate – Stravinsky’s practical artistic approach, grounded in reality and the present, is extremely close to his heart. As the concertmaster of the Liszt Academy Symphony Orchestra he gained valuable orchestral experience under the direction of Zoltán Kocsis, among others. At present he is concentrating mainly on chamber music, regularly performing new pieces with his ensemble, the Kruppa String Quartet. In 2013 he played at the Lockenhaus Kammerfest, and is a regular performer at contemporary music events such as the Hallgatás Napja (Day of Listening) festival, or the Arcus Temporum Festival in Pannonhalma. In 2015 he won the Annie Fischer Scholarship, the Gundel Award for the Arts and the Junior Prima Award. His performance of Bartók’s Violin Concerto represented an important milestone in his career, and one of his most prominent plans for the future is to perform Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto which, alongside Bartók’s, he considers to be the most important work of the 20th century in this genre.