Balint Karosi, Minister of Music
Meet our new Minister of Music Balint Karosi.
A native of Budapest Hungary, Bálint Karosi studied organ, clarinet and improvisation at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and at the Conservatoire Superieure de Genčve. He continued his studies at the Oberlin Conservatory, where he graduated in May 2007 earning both the Artist Diploma and the Master of Music in Historical Performance. He has won many prizes at prestigious international competitions since 2000. His honours include an award for best modern improvisation at the organ competition in Brno, second prize at Prague’s Spring International Clarinet Competition, first prize and the audience prize at the Dublin International Organ Competition, first prize at the Arthur Positer Organ Competition in Syracuse NY and a second prize at the St. Maurice International Organ Competition in Switzerland. In 2006, Bálint was awarded the Ruth and Paul Matz Scholarsip and won the 1st and audience prize of the Miami International Organ competition and also the 2nd Prize of the 2006 American Guild of Organists National Young Artists Competition in Organ Playing. His organ improvisations and original compositions have been well received in Europe and the United States, which led to a commission of his “Consonances” Concerto for Organ and Symphony Orchestra for the new organ at the National Concert Hall in Budapest; he was the featured soloist-composer on June 28th 2007. This work is dedicated to his Oberlin organ professor, James David Christie. Bálint just started working as Minister of Music at the First Lutheran Church in Boston.