Musician. He was recognized as a Grammy Award recipient as a Pianist and Conductor. A prolific performer and maestro, he shall be remembered as the foremost interpreter of the works of Bela Bartok and Gyorgy Kurtag, the latter one of his teachers. A child prodigy, he began playing the piano as a toddler, commenced formal study at five, entered the Bela Bartok Conservatory at 11, and in 1968 was accepted into the Franz Liszt Academy. Kocsis quickly began amassing an impressive number of awards, among them First Prize in the 1970 Beethoven Piano Competition, the 1973 Franz List Prize, and in 1978 Hungary's highest honor, the Kossuth Prize, an accolade that was to be repeated in 2005. Not confining himself to his own land's Masters, he became a noted interpreter of the works of Claude Debussy and Sergei Rachmaninoff, and indeed his 1990 Grammy Award was earned with his presentation of Debussy's "Images". Kocsis founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra in 1983, took-up conducting, and an occasional bit of composing, around 1987, and in 1997 assumed the podium of the Hungarian National Philharmonic where he led both standard and lesser-known works, even resurrecting some of Richard Strauss' more obscure operas. As a conductor who still gave piano performances, he travelled throughout Europe, led London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic, and in 2003 took his ensemble on its first American tour which included guest conducting assignments with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Kocsis remained active until undergoing cardiac surgery in 2012; while retaining his mental sharpness, he was never again able to resume his full former schedule. At his death he left a quite massive recorded legacy.