Eva Szalai

Pianist Éva Szalai was born in Budapest. At age 18, she was awarded the Grand
Prize at the Hungarian National Piano Competition. At the Sixth Adilia Alieva
Competition in France she took both the First Prize and the Special Prize for the
most poetic interpretation. She won the Grand Prize at the Third International
Alain Marinaro Piano Competition (France), and in 2016 she received the First
Prize at the Semper Music International Competition, Italy.
Ms Szalai has appeared in Austria, Chile, France, Germany, The Netherlands,
Hungary, Israel, Italy, Spain and the United States, in venues such the
Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, the National Concert Hall at Müpa Budapest or the
Marble Hall of the Hungarian Radio. She has performed piano concertos by
Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov with orchestra, and
she has performed in the presence of the His Majesty Willem Alexander of The
Netherlands.
Éva Szalai studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, from which
she received her masterʼs degree with highest honours in 2011. She pursued
advanced studies with Dmitri Bashkirov at the Queen Sofia College of Music in
Madrid, and Naum Grubert at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. In 2024
she received her DLA doctoral title at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in
Budapest, the subject of her research was Alfred Cortotʼs Chopin interpretation.