Biography

Zsófia Ujváry-Menyhárt was born in Hamburg in 2003. She began her musical training at the age of six, initially through private lessons, and later continued her studies at the Hamburg Conservatory and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in the class of Prof. Christoph Schickedanz.

In 2023, she was awarded an Erasmus scholarship that enabled her to spend a year of study at the prestigious Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. Since then, Zsófia has been studying there in the class of Miklós Szenthelyi and will complete her Bachelor’s degree this year.

Her artistic development has also been shaped by masterclasses with internationally renowned musicians such as Antje Weithaas, Kirill Troussov, Sergej Krilov, Barnabás Kelemen, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Gyula Stuller, Ioana Cristina Goicea, Katalin Kokas, Dirk Mommertz, Caspar Frantz, Haruka Nagao, Miranda Liu, Ján Krigovský, Thomas Timm, Xavier Torres, and Òscar Colomina i Bosch.

Zsófia regularly participated in the competition “Jugend musiziert” and won a total of ten prizes at the national level in both solo and chamber music categories. In addition, she was a finalist and special prize winner at the Ilona Fehér International Violin Competition in Budapest in 2018, received a First Prize with distinction at the Hamburg Instrumental Competition in 2019, a Third Prize at the International Music Competition OPUS in 2021, and a First Prize with distinction at the International Kiel Instrumental Competition. In 2025, she won First Prize at the Liszt Ferenc International Competition in Budapest.

Furthermore, she has received several special awards, including the Special Prize of the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Young ClassX Soloist Award, the Special Prize of the “Jugend musiziert” Support Association, the Kemnitz Prize, and most recently the Héthy Apor Prize.

As a soloist, Zsófia Ujváry-Menyhárt has performed with the MÁV Symphony Orchestra, the Lüneburg Bach Orchestra, the Virtuózok Chamber Orchestra, and the Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra. She was a member of the Albert Schweitzer Youth Orchestra (where she served as principal player for two and a half years), the NDR Youth Symphony Orchestra—working with Alan Gilbert—and the German National Youth Orchestra, which enabled her to perform in major concert halls throughout Europe and to work with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Paavo Järvi, Ingo Metzmacher, and Elias Grandy.

At the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, she is concertmaster of the university orchestra and has had the opportunity to work with Gábor Takács-Nagy, Kristóf Baráti, and János Kovács. In July 2025, she performed at the EXPO World Exhibition in Osaka, Japan, representing the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.