Zsombor Németh – artistic leader

(c) Peter PalosZsombor Németh (born 1990) began his studies in his hometown, Pécs: he was taught in the local secondary vocational school of arts and simultaneously he was also a student of the Klára Leőwey Gymnasium. During this period of his studies, he was among the finalists at the national violin competition of vocational schools in 2005, and he received a grand prize at the also national ’Helikon’ art competition for high schoolers.

In 2008, he successfully applied to the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music where he began to study Musicology. He received his Bachelor’s degree in 2011, his Master’s degree in 2013, and a supplemental pedagogy certificate in 2014. His theses from this time: Johann Georg Pisendel and the ritornello form: opening movements of concertos after Vivaldi (BA thesis, supervisor: Gergely Fazekas), and The reception of Bach by Zoltán Kodály (MA, supervisor: Anna Dalos). His academic work was acknowledged in various forms: in 2011, he received a prize in the first ‘Fidelio’ competition of critical pieces, and in 2012, he received the fellowship granted by the Republic of Hungary to students of academic excellence. From 2014, he continues his studies at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music as a PhD student in Musicology.

Between 2010 and 2014, he also pursued violin education as a student of Mária Zs. Szabó at the Budapest-located faculty of Vienna Conservatory where he obtained a pedagogical diploma (IGP-Diplom). During the years of his studies, he participated in the extracurricular courses of Vilmos Szabadi, Eszter Perényi, Barnabás Kelemen, Katalin Kokas and Lajos Földesi. Between 2009 and 2010 he was the member of the Zoltán Kodály Youth World Orchestra.

The repertoire of baroque and early classicism has been in the focus of his interest since his secondary education, and he has been involved with the historically informed performance since 2010. After his initial autodidacticism, he took baroque violin courses between 2010 and 2014 from István Kertész as a part of his musicology studies. In these years – partly via scholarships – he had the possibility to participate in local and foreign historically informed music courses, and as such, he could study violin with the tutorship of  László Paulik, Simon Standage, Mary Utiger, Ulli Engel, Miloš Valent, Mónika Tóth, Dmitry Sinkovsky and Enrico Onofri, and chamber music with Christine Schornsheim, Sergio Azzolini, Jordi Savall, Soma Dinyés, György Vashegyi and the artists of the Freiburger Barockorchester (Petra Müllejans, Anne-Katharina Schreiber, Torsten Johann). Between 2015 and 2018, he was studying baroque violin (MA) at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien, in the class of Ulli Engel.

Zsombor Németh is active both as a musicologist and as a violinist. He has been an associate of the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 2012, and since 2017, he is a junior research fellow in the Bartók Archives. he has given presentations at the conferences organized by the Institute and the Hungarian Musicological Society as well as at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pécs. His most notable publications are in the digital musicology journal called Magyar Zene (Hungarian Music) and Parlando. As a violinist, he has been involved in concerts with conductors and musicians such as Zsolt Hamar, Tamás Vásáry, György Vashegyi, Philipp Herreweghe, Joachim Tschiedel, and Konstantin Lifschitz, Sergio Azzolini, Miloš Valent, Emőke Baráth, and Sándor Szászvári, respectively. He played with the Pannon Philharmonic Orchestra, and with the historically informed orchestras of Solamente, Naturali, Savaria Baroque Orchestra and Orfeo Orchestra. Between 2011 and 2013, he was the concertmaster of Budapest Bach Consort. From 2015, he is a member of the Accademia di Monaco in Munich. In 2012 with three others he was the co-founder of Simplicissimus in which he is in charge as a chief artistic leader and coordinator.