The pianist, composer and conductor awarded with the Kossuth and Liszt prizes, was born in 1952 in Budapest. His extraordinary gift for music became evident at a very early age. He commenced his musical studies when he was 5 years old and continued them at the Béla Bartók Conservatory from 1963, specializing in piano and composing. From 1968 to 1973 was admitted to the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, where Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados were his teachers. Already during his school years, he won the Hungarian Radio's Beethoven competition and after his graduation 1973 he accepted an appointment as professor at the school, and since that time has held highly popular Master Classes every August in the city of Szombathely in the west of Hungary. His first important debuts both at home and abroad were also in 1970. During the following 25 years he gave concerts practically all over the world excepting Africa and South America.

In 1980, Zoltan signed an exclusive contract with Philips and has since made over 25 recordings. The recordings of Béla Bartók's complete works written for piano and orchestra, recorded in 1987, (performed with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer) and won an Edison award. In 1990, his selection of Debussy's solo works was awarded with the Gramophone award the best instrumental recording of the year. His Bach, Bartók, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Wagner recordings are in great demand. Together with conductor Iván Fischer, he founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra, where he has a strong influence in the artistic direction. In 1992, the Budapest Festival Orchestra became a permanent orchestra in the City of Budapest, and in the summer of 1995, the orchestra and its conductor signed exclusive recording contracts with Philips.

At present, Zoltán Kocsis is busy researching and recording all of Bartók's works for piano solo for the Philips label. His first six recital recordings have already been released separately, the most recent released last year. The first three recordings however were released in a special Bartók box in March 1995, including the three piano concertos he had previously recorded with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Bartók's death - and the praise for these albums has ensured their status as the reference recordings for many years to come. The recording of the cycle should be completed this year, and will comprise a total of seven or eight CDs. Other Bartok recordings include the highly acclaimed "Mikrokosmos" that was released in 1999. Apart from Bartok, Kocsis has also recently released a Rachmaninoff album - with the Sonata Nr. 2 in the original version, and various Preludes and Etudes, Ravel's two piano concertos coupled with Debussy's Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer, a recording for the piano series of Great Pianists of the 20th Century as well as Debussy's Preludes I+II coupled with Children's Corner.