Árpád Joó (8 June 1948 – 4 July 2014) was a Hungarian American conductor and concert pianist. Early life Maestro Joó (pronounced: Yo) was born in Budapest in 1948. His grandmother was an eminent pupil of István Thomán, at the Franz Liszt Academy (a direct disciple of Franz Liszt). At a very early age, his mother, herself an accomplished pianist and teacher had discovered his musical talent. At the age of five he began his musical studies with his mother and a year later he entered the then newly established Kodály School of Music, under the personal supervision of the Hungarian composer-educator Zoltán Kodály. In short time, he attracted the attention of Kodály himself, who developed a lifelong teacher-student relationship with Joó, which lasted until the death of the composer. During his studies in the Kodály school he was introduced by his teachers to visiting musicians such as Igor Stravinsky, Aram Khachaturian, Pablo Casals, Carl Orff, Yehudi Menuhin, and Dmitri Shostakovich. He studied at the Bartók Conservatory and, at the age of 16, he was admitted to the university level of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music where he studied piano with Joseph Gat and Pál Kadosa. By this time Joó had won his first international piano competition in Taormina in Italy, playing the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1. As a child prodigy he periodically visited Salzburg, Austria, to study at the Mozarteum. At the age of 17 he was invited to give a solo recital in the Montreux festival (Switzerland) in the same series as Martha Argerich, Geza Anda and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Joó's piano performances took him to Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Germany. Career At the age of 20, Joó emigrated to the United States, to study at the Juilliard School in New York City as a special student. In his first year of study at Juilliard, he won first prize of the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Boston, Massachusetts. He became a citizen of the United States and started his conducting career in San Diego, California, at the age of 21, conducting at the Summer Festival a production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. At the age of 22, he entered Indiana University, in Bloomington, Indiana, to study conducting. Joó graduated with a MM in conducting (orchestral and opera). During this time he also studied conducting with Igor Markevitch in Monte Carlo after which he was