KATALIN SZUTRÉLY – soprano

Katalin Szutrély graduated from the Liszt Academy of Music with degrees in choral conducting and vocal pedagogy, and later earned her doctoral (DLA) degree there as well; her dissertation explored connections within German Romantic song and choral literature. Alongside her theoretical studies and professional work, singing has always remained central to her life. Her most important teachers in this field were Valéria Berdál (Szeged – voice studies), Vera Rózsa (United Kingdom), and Anna Reynolds (Germany).

From 2002 to 2007 she taught voice, solfège, and music history at the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Academy in Kecskemét, where she also conducted the choir.

As a singer, she is primarily active in the realm of art song and oratorio. Her repertoire in these genres is shaped predominantly by the works of Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Bach, Michael and Joseph Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Richard Strauss, and Fauré. Throughout her career, German Romantic lieder have held a particularly prominent place in her repertoire. As an opera singer, she has appeared in works by Charpentier, Purcell, Rameau, Leclair, Handel, Mozart, and Wagner. In 2025 she performed, among others, the roles of Nitocris (Handel: Belshazzar), Elettra (Mozart: Idomeneo), and Raffaele (Haydn: Il ritorno di Tobia), as well as the second soprano part in Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor and Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs.

As a soloist, she appears regularly at Hungary’s most important concert venues, including Müpa Budapest – Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, the Liszt Academy – Grand Hall and Solti Hall, and the Kodály Centre in Pécs. Her principal artistic partners include the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra under the direction of György Vashegyi, and she also performs frequently with Concerto Budapest and the Saint Stephen Philharmonic. As a recitalist, her most significant pianist partners are Mihály Berecz and Petra Somlai.