Zoltán Pad, conductor, studied at the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest and in Munich with a DAAD scholarship. Since 2014, he is chief conductor of the Hungarian Radio Choir.
He is an internationally renowned conductor, who in recent years received the opportunity to conduct outstanding ensembles including the SWR Vokalensemble in Stuttgart, the MDR Radio Choir in Leipzig, the NDR Vokalensemble in Hamburg, the Netherlands Radio Choir, the French Radio Choir, the Zürcher Sing-Akademie, the Chamber Choir Ireland, the ChorWerk Ruhr, the Polish Radio Choir, the Arsys Bourgogne Chamber Choir, the Croatian Radio Choir, the Cracow Singers, and the World Youth Choir. As conductor of the Hungarian Radio Choir, he has conducted numerous concerts in Hungary and abroad, with several contemporary a cappella pieces premiered on their programme. Most pieces were also recorded for the Hungarian Radio.
In recent years, he has worked with outstanding conductors and ensembles including Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, Daniel Harding, Péter Eötvös and the Vienna Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Alan Gilbert, Helmuth Rilling, Christoph Gedschold, Kazuki Yamada, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Zoltán Kocsis, György Vashegyi, Gergely Kesselyák, Iván Fischer, Ádám Fischer and Carlos Miguel Prieto.
His extensive repertoire ranges from Renaissance music to recently composed works, he has conducted many first performances of contemporary pieces. He is a devoted interpreter of Hungarian contemporary music, and the works of Bartók, Kodály, Ligeti, and Eötvös.
He is a committed pedagogue and leads workshops and conducting courses all around the world. He also has considerable experience as a university lecturer. Between 2005 and 2021, he worked as assistant lecturer, then subsequently senior lecturer of the Liszt Academy of Music. In March 2018, he was awarded the Liszt Prize and in 2022, the Lajtha Prize in honour of his work.
