Commended as “a most impressive musical interpreter,” (Boston Musical Intelligencer) Hungary native Bálint Karosi has earned a widely heralded reputation for his creative programming and expressive command of a wide range of repertoire. His music-making is deftly guided by historical performance practice and a remarkably multi-faceted musicianship at the pipe organ that is enriched by his experiences as a composer, conductor, church musician, and clarinetist. He is the winner of the 2008 International Bach Competition in Leipzig and has six volumes of organ music published. Dr. Karosi is the newly appointed director of music at First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. karosi.org

“…ferociously talented.”
(WGBH Classical New England, 2013)

“Wow! Just WOW!! I never in all my days (and I’m 75) thought I’d ever hear a performance of the hackneyed T&F in d to equal that of Piet Kee at St. Bavo. Well, here it is, and it has taken two generations of organists to do so! Total respect and kudos to Maestro Karosi at the mighty Flentrop.”
(Colin Gantiglew, Durham, North Carolina, January 2023)

Bálint Karosi has been commended as “a most impressive musical interpreter” (Dr. Christoph Wolff, the Boston Musical Intelligencer) and praised for his virtuosity, “[He] inspired awe with the work’s marvelous scalar passages and fiery finish…” (The Diapason) and has earned a reputation for his expressive command of a wide range of repertoire that is guided by historical performance practice and his multi-faceted experiences as composer, conductor, church musician, harpsichordist, and clarinetist.

Since winning the International Bach Competition in Leipzig in 2008, Dr. Karosi has been recognized as one of the leading interpreters of the music of J. S. Bach worldwide. In 2020, he embarked on recording the complete organ works of J. S. Bach in fourteen recitals on different organs in the U.S. and Europe. The series, designed by Christoph Wolff for Izumi Hall, Japan, is published on Balint’s YouTube channel. He is one of few organists in North America to improvise regularly in recitals in authentic Baroque Style, which is informed by his research in Baroque improvisation techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries. He has recorded five albums that have been received with critical acclaim: “[Bálint Karosi] plays with self-understood naturalness, without trying to emphasize a sacred pathos” (Gramafon, Hungary, 2015) ̶including J. S. Bach’s Clavier-übung III and the Art of Fugue, that he recorded on the organ, harpsichord, and clavichord.

Dr. Karosi’s engagements have included concerts in Denmark, Hungary, and Finland, and he has given solo organ concerts in concert halls in Budapest, Leipzig, Osaka, Yokohama, and Geneva, and on some of the world’s most significant historic organs in Lübeck, Leipzig, Norden, Leer, Paris, Freiberg, Merseburg, and Naumburg, among others. He has given masterclasses in improvisation at Eastman School of Music, Yale, Oberlin, University of Michigan, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Hochschule für Musik in Lübeck, and the Cuneo Conservatory in Italy. Recent performances include those at Carnegie Hall, the Helsinki Music Centre, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Izumi Hall in Osaka, Minato Mirai Hall in Yokohama, and Palace of the Arts and the Liszt Academy in Budapest. He has performed as concerto soloist with the Turku Symphony Orchestra, Spectrum Symphony, the Far Cry Ensemble in Boston, and the Erdödy Chamber Orchestra. He has performed at the MuSeg and the Josef Enchavarría Organ Festivals in Spain, four times at the Bergen International Organ Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Dublin International Organ Festival, the Bach Society in Minnesota, and the Leipzig Bachfest, among others.

His eleven volumes of music have been published by the Leupold Foundation, and 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) was the compulsory piece for the finals of the 2020 National Young Artist Competition in Organ Playing at the AGO National Convention in Atlanta. Dr. 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, 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. Dr. Karosi’s compositions include works for choir, solo voice, solo clarinet, piano, harpsichord, symphony orchestra and wind symphony. He has composed cantatas, concertos for organ, harpsichord, clarinet, and baroque violins, a triple concerto for harp, cimbalom, and guitar and a Requiem Mass. 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 prize-winning Kodály Triptych that won the first prize of the Hungarian Philharmonia’s composition competition in 2022, and Syöjätär, the first prize and the special prize winner of the 2023 Kaija Saarijaho Organ Concerto Competition in Finland. His five organ concertos and orchestral works have been performed by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Spectrum Symphony New York, Musicians Libres, Anima Musica and the St Thomas Choir in NYC.

Dr. Karosi is the recipient numerous first prizes in organ competitions; the J. S. Bach competition in Leipzig, the International Organ Competition in Miami, and the Dublin International Organ competition that he won at age 22. He was appointed as Director of Music at First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia in May 2024. Previously he served as Cantor at Saint Peter’s Church in New York City, where he was artistic director of the Saint Peter’s Bach Collegium. From 2007 to 2015, Dr. Karosi served as Minister of Music at the First Lutheran Church of Boston, where he established a Bach Cantata Vespers, raised funds for the completion of the Richards Fowkes Op. 10 pipe organ, and he founded the church’s successful annual Boston Bach Birthday in 2008, which has since developed into the most popular organ-related event in Boston. During the 2023-2024 academic year, he served on the faculty of the Organ Department at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance where he taught organ literature, church music, and improvisation.

He has studied at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, the Conservatoire Supérieure in Geneva, and the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. He earned his DMA in composition at the Yale School of Music. Aside from solo organ performances and composing, he enjoys work as a collaborative harpsichordist, continuo player, and occasional clarinet player, often featuring historical clarinets. He has been broadcast numerous times on American Public Media’s Pipedreams, as well as WGBH Boston and Bartók Rádio in Hungary. www.karosi.org