He was born in Budapest (Hungary) in 1953. He started playing the piano at the age of four. He studied piano and composition at the Bartók Conservatory and then piano and chamber music at the Liszt Academy in Budapest under the tutelage of Kornél Zemplèni, Ferenc Rados, György Kurtág, András Mihály and Albert Simon. In addition, he has participated in master classes by Jörg Demus.
He has won the Special Award of the Hungarian Radio Contest, the Third Prize of the Budapest Liszt-Bartók International Contest and the First Prize of the Chamber Music International of Bloomington (United States).
As a soloist, he plays all over the world with orchestras such as the Dresdner Staatskapelle, Dresden Philharmonic, Berlin and Budapest Symphonies, Salzburg Mozarteum and Liszt Chamber Orchestra, with musicians such as Eugen Jochum, Péter Eötvös, Iván and Àdám Fischer , Jörg Demus, Thomas Riebl, András Keller, Stefan Ruha, Miklós Perényi, Erich Höbarth, Thomas Zehetmair, András Schiff, the Bartók String Quartet, the Pro Arte Quartett or the Chicago Symphony Chamber Players, among others. Since 1985 he has formed a piano duo with his wife Tünde Kurucz.
He has been a piano teacher at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and, since 1990, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the city where he currently resides. Between 1980 and 1981 he was a director with Karl Österreicher at the Vienna Academy of Music, and since 2001 he has been a visiting professor at the University of Alcalá de Henares. In addition, since 2002 he is director of the Chamber Symphony Orchestra of Budapest.
He has been invited to teach master classes at the International Bartók Seminar for 15 years. In addition, he has been one of the promoters of the Auer Summer Academy in Veszprém (Hungary).
He has recorded for Hungaroton, Denon, BMC and Preiser Records.