Szabolcs Szilágyi
FLute lecturer, Szeged University Béla Bartók Faculty of Arts
Flutist in Concerto Budapest, Founder of Budapest Flute Academy, Hungary
19.5K Custom Flute, Silver Mechanism, INLINE G, Platinum N Cut Headjoint with 18K Riser & 14K Lip Plate
Szabolcs Szilágyi was born to a family of artists. His father was an actor and his mother is a cultural manager, who works as fine art gallery director.
He graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, where he was a student of the late Tihamér Elek. He then went to London to continue postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music with Susan Milan. Meanwhile, invited by the maestro, he attended Sir James Galway’s international seminar in Weggis, Switzerland, on several occasions.
Szabolcs Szilágyi has been a member of Concerto Budapest – formerly Hungarian Symphony Orchestra – since 1995. The orchestra’s artistic director is András Keller, leader of the Keller String Quartet and violin professor at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, United Kingdom. Mr. Szilágyi played at the Frankfurt Chamber Opera, and was a regular member of the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of pianist/conductor Tamás Vásáry and later of world renowned conductor Ádám Fischer.
As an orchestral musician, he has worked with distinguished artists such as, among others, conductors Kobayashi Ken Ichiro, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Thierry Fischer, Yuri Simonov, Krzysztof Penderecki, János Fürst, Gerhard Markson, Nikolaj Znaider, Tan Dun, Gábor Takács- Nagy, Michael Halász and Zoltán Kocsis, Heinz Holliger, and soloists Gidon Kremer, Sir James Galway, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Petra Lang, Angela Hewitt, Isabelle Faust, Vadim Repin, Barbara Hendricks, Boris Berezovsky, Juliane Banse, Gilles Apap, Andrea Rost, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Angela Gheorghiu, László Polgár, Olga Kern, Jose Cura, Bobby McFerrin, Ildikó Komlósi, Anna Vinnitskaya, Branford Marsalis, Steven Isserlis, Khatia Buniatishvili among others.
Mr. Szilágyi has toured in nearly all European countries, as well as Russia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, the Middle East and the USA. He has made TV, DVD and Radio recordings, as well as CD recordings for Hungaroton, BMC, Teldec/Warner and Naxos. Since 2017 Concerto Budapest has recorded exclusively for Tacet Musikproduction of Germany.
As a soloist and chamber musician, Szabolcs Szilágyi has performed in several venues in Hungary incluing the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, the Valley of Arts, Zsámbék Jazz Open, where the concert was broadcast live by the Hungarian Radio, Merlin Theatre, Trafó - House of Contemporary Arts, the Hungarian National Museum and Concerto Budapest’s House of Music. Besides Concerto Budapest, he has also played with the Budapest Chamber Symphony and the Amadinda Percussion Group, with the latter’s performance recorded on CD released by Hungaroton.
He premiered in Hungary the works of such composers as Lowell Liebermann, Aaron Jay Kernis, Mike Mower and David Heath.
In 2012 he returned to his mentor, Sir James Galway, for a solo concert at Weggis, Switzerland, at the Sir James Galway Flute Festival, where other distinguished guest artists included Denis Bouriakov, Andrea Griminelli and Philippe Bernold.
He was invited in August 2013 to play in a recital and take part of the Jury of the Young Artist Competition at the Annual Convention of the National Flute Association in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the United States.
Mr. Szilágyi performed at the Beijing Hungarian Cultural Institute (2014), and has been a guest artist at several events such as the Canadian Flute Convention (Toronto 2015), Sir James Galway Flute Festival (Weggis, Switzerland 2016, 2019) the Adams Flute Festival (Ittervoort, The Netherlands 2018) and the Flautando 2019 anniversary event (Boswil, Switzerland). He has held master classes in China, South-Korea, Switzerland and Hungary.
Beyond his career as a musician, he has also published articles in Pan, the British Flute Society’s journal, Fuvolaszó, the Hungarian Flute Society’s magazine, as well as Parlando, a journal of music pedagogy in Hungary, the prestigious Gramofon Magazine’s printed version in Hungary and the German Flute Society’s Flöte Aktuell magazine. Also his article released at The Flute View magazine December 2019 issue while he appeared on the front cover of the January issue in 2020 of the same magazine.
Since 2018 he has recorded exclusively for Hungarian record label Hunnia Records.
Mr. Szilágyi is the founder and artistic director of the Budapest Flute Academy.
Since 2020 Mr. Szilágyi plays on a 19.5 k custom handmade gold flute and holds the prestigious Haynes Artist title.