Balázs Kecskés D. writes music in dialogue with the tradition of Western classical music, exploring new ways of encountering reality and our own connection to it. His music has been described as “profanely spiritual” (New Music Journal), “incandescent” (Papageno), and as having “the power to move and unsettle, to speak to us and provoke reflection” (Revizor).
His large-scale oratorio The Crucified (Der Gekreuzigte), commissioned by the Hungarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra, was premiered in 2026. It’s a modern Passion, bringing together biblical scripture as well as texts by Nietzsche and Pilinszky to create an entrancing encounter between different eras and worldviews.
Through his solo and chamber works, his choral and orchestral pieces, concerti and oratorios, Balázs creates sound worlds that can capture a specific period in history or reflect contemporary life.
His orchestral work Blue, commissioned by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, was premiered by Gergely Madaras at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 2022. Other ensembles that have premiered his music include the Helsinki Chamber Choir (Finland), the NeoQuartet (Poland), the Estonian Collegium Musicale Chamber Choir, the San Francisco Choral Artists and the U.S.-based Garth Newel Piano Quartet. In his own country, Balázs has had works premiered by the Hungarian Radio Orchestra and Choir, the Budapest String Orchestra, and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.
Other notable works include Komm, for chamber choir and string quartet, which has been performed by prominent choirs in Munich, Helsinki, Gdańsk, and Schwäbisch Gmünd as part of the Festival Europäische Kirchenmusik. His piano cycle 24 Postludes, which engages in dialogue with the tradition of Chopin’s Preludes, was premiered by pianist Domonkos Csabay at the Budapest Music Center in 2025.
Balázs received the Bartók-Pásztori Prize in 2025, and the Istvánffy Benedek Award of the Hungarian Composers’ Union in 2020 and 2019 (the award given annually to an outstanding composer under 40). In 2021, he was a mentored composer at the Peter Eötvös Foundation.
As a lecturer at the Composition Department of the Liszt Academy of Music, Balázs teaches composition, Viennese classical techniques and contemporary music analysis. He holds degrees from the Liszt Academy of Music where he studied with János Vajda, and spent a semester at the Luigi Cherubini Music Conservatory in Firenze as a student of Paolo Furlani.
Upcoming projects include a Piano Concerto, commissioned by the Szeged Symphony Orchestra for pianist Mihály Berecz, and a new string quartet commissioned by the NeoQuartet.
