About this Event
Dr. Gábor Farkas, Liszt Ferenc Prize-winning concert pianist and President of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, will perform a piano concert in Ottawa on October 28, 2026. Organized by the Embassy of Hungary in Ottawa, the event commemorates the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight.
His performing style combines formidable virtuosity with a rich, singing tone, refined agogics and a highly personal approach to musical expression. His repertoire has a strong emphasis on the Romantic tradition, and Tamás Vásáry has aptly described him as “the poet of the piano.”
Among his major competition achievements, Farkas won the 6th International Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar in 2009, receiving both the Audience Prize and the award for the best performance of a Haydn sonata. In 2015 he won the New York Concert Artists & Associates competition, leading to his Carnegie Hall debut in 2016. He has since performed at major concert halls and festivals across Europe, Asia and the United States.
Alongside his performing career, Farkas is an active force in shaping musical institutions and artistic communities. Since 2025 he has served as President of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music; since 2022 he has been founder and Artistic Director of the Far Eastern Classical Music Festival in Budapest. In 2025 he also became a founding partner of the International Liszt Music Center in Wenzhou, China, and Artistic Director of its Liszt–Bartók Festival. Since 2024 he has been Professor of Piano at the International Piano Academy Lake Como. He regularly gives masterclasses and serves on international piano competition juries.
His recordings include releases with Warner Classics, Hungaroton, Toccata Classics and Steinway & Sons Records. A Steinway Artist since 2017, he is currently recording Mozart’s complete piano sonatas for Hungaroton.
Through the universal language of classical music, the concert honours the legacy of the freedom fighters and pays tribute to those Hungarians who, fleeing the ensuing retaliation, found a new home in Canada.
The commemorative evening features a curated selection of masterpieces by Ferenc Liszt:
Liszt: Sposalizio, S. 161 (The Marriage)
Liszt: Il Penseroso, S. 161 (The Thinker)
Liszt: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, S. 161 (Petrarch's Sonnet 104)
Liszt: Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este, S. 163 (The Fountains of the Villa d'Este)
Liszt: Ave Maria, S. 182 (The Bells of Rome)
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12, S. 244
Liszt: Totentanz, S. 126 (Dance of Death)
The concert is sponsored by the National Cultural Fund of Hungary.: https://nka.hu/
Event venue & nearby stays
Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, 355 Cooper Street, Ottawa, Canada
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