Valentin Magyar
He started to play the piano at the age of six in his native town of Balassagyarmat in Northern Hungary. His special talent was immediately manifested, he won all the competitions of his age group, including the National Piano Competition of Nyíregyháza.
From 2013 he continued his studies in Budapest. In 2015, at the age of 14, he was admitted to the class of special talents at the prestigious Franz Liszt Music Academy, where he obtained in 2024 his master's degree as student of Dénes Várjon and Gábor Farkas. Simultaneously he studied in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy with Kirill Gerstein where he is due to receive his masters degree this year.

In 2020 he was winner of the Yamaha Competition and of the HCC Competition in New York. In 2021 he received third prize at the International Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar, Germany (no first prize was awarded), in the same year he received the Junior Prima Prize. In 2022 he was winner of the Zoltán Kocsis Prize awarded by the Kocsis-Hauser Foundation and recipient of the Annie Fischer Scholarship. In 2023 he received gold medal at the International Music Competition of Vienna, won the Concorde Prize as most talented student of the Franz Liszt Music Academy, and received the prize of the Cziffra Festival in Hungary.

In spite of his young age he performs regularly in Hungary and abroad. In 2022 he was chosen from hundreds of students to be the soloist of the Jubilee Concert of the Franz Liszt Music Academy and received standing ovation in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.4. In 2023 he performed, among others, at the Liszt Academy in Budapest (Grieg Concerto), in Hungarian Radio, at the Kaposfest International Chamber Music Festival (sonata programme with Kristóf Baráti), in Germany (solo recitals in Ruhla, Gotha, Eisenach), in Brazil (solo and orchestral concert), in Croatia, and made his first CD recording for the Hungaroton label („Sentimenal Moments” - works of Rachmaninov).

He made his sensational debut in China in March 2024 with solo and orchestral concerts in Shanghai and Suzhou. Still in 2024 he toured in Brazil (Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo), played a series of chamber music concerts at the Franz Liszt Music Academy, performed recitals with Kristóf Baráti in Serbia and appeared in solo in Rumania, England and his native Hungary. His second CD featuring works of Liszt and Schubert is due to be released by the label Hungaroton later in 2025.