Zoltan Onczay
Cellist

Received his diploma at the Liszt Music Academy Budapest in 2004 in the class of László Mező, cellist of the famous Bartók Quartet. Afterwards Zoltan received his soloist diploma as a Hindemith scholarship student in Berlin at the UDK in 2008, in the class of Wolfgang Boettcher. During the international seminars, his professor were: János Starker, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Thomas Demenga, Heinrich Schiff, Jens Peter Maintz

Led by Claudio Abbado, Zoltan was principal cellist in the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, and toured numerous American and European large cities, performing at concerts with artists such as Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Mariss Jansons, Kent Nagano, Anne Sophie Mutter, Jurij Bashmet and Yo-Yo Ma.

He received the Yamaha Award from the European Yamaha Music Foundation, one amongst his numerous awards. He also won the Martinu Award during the Semmering Summer Academy and the Wiener-Classic and Kodaly Award. He also received a prize at the international competition of European Music for Youth in Oslo.

As a cellist of the Budapest Sextet (1999-2003), he performed in Germany and Japan. He lived in Germany from 2004 until 2015 where he was member of the Mannheim Chamber Orchestra, and was artistic leader of the Tower concert chamber series.

Zoltan was a guest principal cellist at the Tongyeong Festival Orchestra in South Korea in 2017/18.  Since autumn of 2015, he is principal cellist at the MAV Symphony Orchestra in Budapest.

He is a founding member of the Fejes Academy established in 2020 and since, and since 2021 he is a member and Principal cellist of the Madrid Soloists. In 2022, he was invited to the Renova Music Festival in USA and the Kulangsu Cello Festival in China.

He considers his mission to be the promotion of Hungarian and contemporary music locally and abroad, as well as to teaching and supporting of young talents. In addition to classical music, he is also engaged in electroacoustic and improvisational music. In 2021 received the Artisjus Performing Arts Award in Hungary.