György Sebők
was an internationally renowned pianist and Distinguished Professor at the Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

 School of Music in Bloomington USA.

He was known worldwide as a soloist with major orchestras, a recitalist on four continents, a recording artist, and for his master classes, visiting professorships, and the Swiss music festival he organized in Ernen.

Biography

He was born in Szeged

Szeged

' is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county town of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary....

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 on November 2, 1922.

Sebök gave his first solo piano recital at age 11. At 14, he played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 under conductor Ferenc Fricsay

Ferenc Fricsay

Ferenc Fricsay was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leo Weiner. Fricsay had a meteoric rise to fame, making his first appearance as a...

- a performance upon which he would reflect many years later.

He enrolled in the Franz Liszt Academy at the age of 16, under the guidance of Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....

 and Leo Weiner

Leo Weiner

Leo Weiner , was one of the leading Hungarian music educators of the first half of the twentieth century and a composer.- Education :Weiner was born in Budapest. He had his first music and piano lessons from his brother, and later studied at the Academy of Music in Budapest, studying with János ...

. After graduating, he gave concerts for ten years throughout Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union.

He won the Grand Prix du Disque

Grand Prix du Disque

The Grand Prix du Disque is the premier French award for musical recordings. The award was inaugurated by l'Académie Charles Cros in 1948 and offers prizes in various categories. The categories vary from year to year, and multiple awards are often made in any one category in the same year...

 in 1957. Sebök was listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Music, the National Register of Prominent Americans, and other biographical dictionaries. He received numerous honors, including the Cross of Merit of the Hungarian Government, La Medaille de la Ville de Paris, Echelon Vermeille, and, in 1996, Kulturpreis des Staates Wallis, (Prix de Consecration). Also in 1996, the French Government bestowed on him the decoration Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Teaching

In 1949, he was named professor of music at the Béla Bartók Conservatory in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

. After the Hungarian revolt of 1956

1956 Hungarian Revolution

The Hungarian Revolution or Uprising of 1956 was a spontaneous nationwide revolt against the government of the People's Republic of Hungary and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956....

, he settled in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Encouraged by his friend Janos Starker

János Starker

János Starker |Kingdom of Hungary]]) is a Hungarian-American cellist. Since 1958 he has taught at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he holds the title of Distinguished Professor.- Child prodigy :...

, at the age of forty, he went to Indiana University School of Music

Jacobs School of Music

The Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music...

 in Bloomington, starting what is considered to be the most productive phase of his career.

Sebök was a guest professor of the Berlin Hochschule der Kunste (HDK) in Germany, there teaching master classes twice a year. He was also an honorary life (MORE) (SEBOK/2) member of Tokyo's Toho School of Music, and a regular guest teacher at the Banff Centre for Arts; the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatorium, the School of Music in Barcelona, and the Hochschule fuer Musik in Stuttgart. In 1974 he founded and organized annual summer master classes in Ernen, Switzerland for pianists and 'other instruments'. He also founded and directed the "Festival der Zukunft" in Ernen in 1987, which is to this day carrying his legacy with growing numbers of concertgoers. The city's officials made him an honorary citizen - only their third in 800 years.

Quotes

Prior to a 1985 recital at IU's Musical Arts Center, Sebök looked back on his concert at age 14, and drew a connection between that event and his teaching philosophy. "During the third movement I made some mistakes," he recalled, "but I didn't feel guilty about it because I felt I had done my best. We had a neighbor, a music lover, who said to my grandfather about my performance, 'Oh, that was wonderful, but in the third movement something went wrong.' My grandfather became very angry and him and said, 'I don't care, because the sun has spots, too.' That was a beautiful thing for my grandfather to say, I think, and sometimes I remember that: Even the sun has spots."

Similarly, Sebök helped his students overcome fear of mistakes in order to give their best performances.

External links

• Sebok: in memoriam - Indiana University.
• Video: Gyorgy Sebok talks his feelings during and after the war and plays the Busoni transcription of the Bach's Adagio - BWV 564.
• http://www.musikdorf.ch/ * http://www.findagrave.com memorial #47620400 * /ai_n8902059 In memoriam: Gyorgy Sebok Musical Times, Spring 2000.