Biography

Born in Hungary in 1881, Bartok began his musical studies on the piano at age five. His mother was his first teacher; after his father died in 1888, the Bartok family moved to Nagyszolos, where Bela continued his piano studies and took up composition. At age eleven, he made his first public appearance, playing his own piano music. Bartok enrolled in the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest. he made several tours of Europe after his graduation in 1902. In 1940 Bartok moved to the United States to get away from the Nazi expansion, and was given a teaching position at Columbia University in New York City. With the exception of some noted musicians - conductor Serge Koussevitzky and violinist Yehudi Menuhin in particular - he was generally misunderstood and ignored by the musical establishment. He contracted leukemia in the early 1940s, and died in the fall of 1945, unaware of the monumental status he would achieve after death.
- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>

Composer, pianist and author, educated at the Franz Liszt Conservatory in Budapest. He was professor of music at the Royal Academy from 1907 to 1940, and made a 12-volume collection of traditional Hungarian, Rumanian and Arabian melodies, also writing articles on research into folklore and folk songs. He joined ASCAP in 1946, and his works include "Rhapsody for Piano"; "Hungarian Folk Songs"; "Suite No. 2 for Orchestra"; "Portraits for Orchestra"; "Bagatelles"; "Violin Concerto No. 1"; "For Children"; "Roumanian Dances"; "Deux Images for Orchestra"; "Bluebeard's Castle"; "The Wooden Prince"; "Christmas Carols"; "Roumanian Folk Dances"; "Piano Sonatina"; "The Miraculous Mandarin"; "Improvisations"; "Dance Suite"; "Out of Doors"; "Piano Sonata"; "Village Scenes"; "Hungarian Sketches"; "Rhapsody No. 1 for Cello, Piano"; "Cantata Profana"; "Duos for 2 Violins"; "Hungarian Peasant Songs"; "Mikrokosmos"; "Mikrokosmos Suite"; "Music for Strings, Percussion, Celeste"; "Sonata for 2 Pianos, Percussion"; "Violin Concerto"; "Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, Piano"; "Divertimento for String Orchestra"; "Concerto for Orchestra"; "Violin Sonata"; "Viola Concerto"; six string quartets; twelve a capella choruses; two sonatas for violin and piano; three piano concertos; and two rhapsodies for violin and orchestra.
- IMDb mini biography by: Hup234!