Composer
Dr. Balint Karosi has been Cantor and Director of Music, Classical at Saint Peter’s Church in Midtown Manhattan since 2015. After winning the 2008 Bach Prize in Leipzig, Balint has been in demand as a recitalist and clinician worldwide, known for the interpretation of Bach’s music and his Baroque-style improvisations. His recording portfolio includes three albums by Hungaroton, including his original orchestral works, and thirteen albums of the complete works for organ by J. S. Bach. Balint has recently joined the faculty of the Organ Department at the University of Michigan, where he will be teaching organ literature, church music and improvisation, starting August 2023.
Dr. Karosi’s compositions include the reconstruction of Bach’s lost St Mark’s Passion for Saint Peters, four organ concerti, two operas, cantatas, choral, orchestral, and instrumental works. His eight volumes of organ works are published by the Leupold Foundation. His Toccata in Memory of Bartók was the compulsory work for the 2022 NYACOP competition, his Kodály Triptych won the first prize of the Hungarian Philharmonia’s 2022 composition competition, and, in 2023, his organ concerto Syöjätär has been awarded the Kaija Saarijaho prize and the prize of the Finnish National Composer Award in Helsinki, Finland.
Bálint has studied at the Liszt Academy in his native Budapest, Hungary, the Conservatoire Superieure in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. He earned his DMA in composition at the Yale School of Music in 2017.
As an active composer, Bálint Karosi has received commissions from the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Spectrum Symphony of New York, the New Hungarian Music Society (UMZE), Musiciens Libres, the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra, Anima Musica Chamber Orchestra, Antico Moderno, the Norfolk Festival Chorus, the Yale Philharmonia Orchestra, Canto Armonico, and the Boston Choral Ensemble.
His opera, “Lonely Hearts,” won the “Most Dramatic Opera” award and audience vote at the 2020 Contemporary Opera Showcase at the Hungarian State Opera. The libretto, written by Hungarian playwright Almási András Tóth, is based on a true story of a fraudulent American dating service from the 1980’s. Dr. Karosi’s compositions include works for choir, solo voice, solo clarinet, piano, harpsichord, symphony orchestra and wind symphony. He has composed cantatas, three concertos for organ, concertos for harpsichord, clarinet and baroque violins, and a triple concerto for harp, cimbalom and guitar. Three of these are featured on his critically acclaimed album Existentia, released in 2019 on the Hungaroton label. Of the concerto, Records International wrote in 2019: “the soloists, joined by others within the ensemble, emerge to play beautiful, exotically tinged melodies, like tellers of ancient tales.”
His six volumes of organ music, published by Wayne Leupold Editions, include his Organ Book No. 1 (2017), conceived for historic organs, and works in a more symphonic idiom, often drawing inspiration from Hungarian music as in his Symphony on a Chorale by Béla Bartók (2012). His Toccata in memory of Béla Bartók (2007) is the compulsory piece for the finals of the 2020 National Young Artist Competition in Organ Playing at the AGO National Convention in Atlanta.
