Rozsnyai, Zoltán

views updated

Rozsnyai, Zoltán

Rozsnyai, Zoltán , Hungarian-born American conductor; b. Budapest, Jan. 29, 1927; d. San Diego, Sept. 10, 1990. He was educated in Budapest, where he studied with Bartók, Kodáaly, and Dohnányi at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, and took courses at the Technical Univ. and the Pazmany Peter Univ., before completing his studies at the Univ. of Vienna. He was conductor of the Miskolc Phil. (1948–50) and the Debrecen Opera (1950–53). After the abortive Hungarian revolution in 1956, he settled in the U.S. In 1957 he founded the Philharmonia Hungarica, with which he toured in 1958. In 1962–63 he was an asst. conductor of the N.Y. Phil. He was music director of the Cleveland Phil. (1965–68) and the San Diego Sym. Orch. (1967–71). In 1976 he became music director of the Golden State Opera Co. in Los Angeles. He was music director of the Knoxville (Term.) Sym. Orch. from 1978 to 1985.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire