Junior Prima Award winning organist and Liszt-reseacher Zsolt Máté Mészáros is a defining figure of the young generation of organ players, and is one of the most successfull organists in his home country of Hungary.

He graduated with Highest Honors from the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest in 2018, where he currently continues his PhD studies. He won the Annie Fischer Scholarship for Performing Arts on three occasions (2016, 2017, 2019), the Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Arts in 2020, and the Scholarship of the New National Excellence Program (2021, 2022).

One of his most important goals is to popularize organ music and the Hungarian music culture. The research he conducted as the scholar of the Hungarian Academy of Arts related to this mission: he is working on the new edition of the complete organ and harmonium works of Franz Liszt.

In 2012 he won the Competition of the Filharmonia Hungary. In 2022, he won third prize at the Composers Competition of the Filharmonia Hungary with his Concert Overture for the Night of the Organs, and he won third prize with his Gisela Mass for mixed and orchestra at the Composers Competition of the Archdiocese of Veszprém, Hungary.

Over the past several years, he has given hundreds of concerts in Hungary, and is receiving international invitations as well. He has given concerts in major cities and prestigious organ festivals in many European countries and given his first recital in the USA, Philadelphia in 2022. In 2022 he launched the Terra Sancta Organ Festival in the Holy Lands with solo recitals in Israel and Palestine. He also regularly performs with the most celebrated ensembles of Hungary.

From 2018 he serves as the Organist of Holy Spirit Church in Budapest. In 2021 he became the Director of Music in the Main Parish Church of the Assumption in Budapest, which has long been a cultural center in the city. The church has strong ties to Franz Liszt who was a regular guest of the parish, and premiered and conducted his own works there many times. He is also the Regens Chori (director) of the church’s choir.

In addition to historical organs, he is also interested in the now rare pressure-system harmoniums. He is the Musical Director of the Society of Hungarian Harmonium Lovers. At his concerts he often plays his own transcriptions, many of which have now been published by Partitura Music. He has also premiered many contemporary Hungarian pieces dedicated especially for him.

september 2023