Gallery of Prominent Refugees

Sir Georg Solti

An outstanding English pianist and conductor of Hungarian origin

He studied to play piano, composition, and conducting with Bartók, Dohnányi, Kodály, and Leo Weiner. Although he made his concert debutas as a pianist, very soon the Budapest Opera recognized him as a conductor. In 1937 Toscanini selected him as his assistant at the Salzburg Festival. Before the outbreak of World War II, Solti went to Switzerland as a refugee, turning again to the piano for his livelihood, and in 1942 he won the first prize in the Concours International in Geneva. In 1961 – 1971 due to his talent he headed the Royal Opera.

Resources: http://welltempered.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/classical-music-georg-solti-conducted-an-orchestra-the-way-arthur-rubinstein-played-the-piano-in-a-straight-forward-muscular-and-non-neurotic-way-while-the-recording-industry-was-its-peak/,

https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/8_about/History_-_Rosenthal_archives/Sir_Georg_Solti.pdf,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5n0DLYbYqc.