Peter Eötvös is a highly influential figure of the Hungarian and international contemporary music scene. He started composing music as early as the age of 5. He grew up in Budapest and learned composition in the School of Exceptional Young Talents at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Afterwards, he continued his studies in Cologne, Germany, where he studied composition under the tutelage of B. A. Zimmermann and had the opportunity to work with Karlheinz Stockhausen. His international career has taken him to many countries all over the world, from Japan to Germany, France, the Netherlands and USA.

As the musical director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain for over a decade, he had the chance to personally collaborate with the most significant living composers of the time. His twelve operas, instrumental solo concertos, larger and smaller scale symphonic compositions and chamber music pieces are regularly staged in the world’s greatest concert halls, festivals and opera houses.

In recent years, he has been commissioned to write orchestral pieces for the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, New York Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, London and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Wiener Philharmoniker, and many others. His social and political sensitivity has inspired him to pen several of his pieces, for example Alle vittime senza nome, Oratorium balbulum, The Golden Dragon and Angels in America.

His operas were commissioned by some of the most prestigious houses such as Opéra de Lyon, Théâtre du Châtelet à Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Oper Frankfurt. It is not just the topics of his operas that reflects on today’s world, but Eötvös also often uses contemporary source texts as librettos. Currently, he is working on two operas commissioned by the Staatsoper Berlin and the Hungarian State Opera House