Our mission   

The ’József Simándy’ Singing Competition is an internationally known, high-quality singing competition in Hungary. The mission of the competition is to discover the talented young opera singers and help them to start their career. The other purpose of the contest is to remember the great Hungarian tenor József Simándy and his demanding professional-artistic attitude and his human behavior. The competition is recorded in the Hungarian Repository of Values as cultural heritage since 2018. The contestants come mainly from Hungary and the Carpathian Basin, but the competition also attracts young singers from many other countries around the world.

Our history

The competition was founded by Prof. Dr. Mária Temesi, operasinger and György Sinkó, operasinger, master teacher of voice in 1997.  The eponym of the contest is József Simándy (1916-1997) operasinger, recipient of the Kossuth Prize, excellent artist of the National Theatre of Szeged, the Hungarian State Opera and Staatsoper in Münich and academy teacher of Franz Liszt Academy of Music. Due to his professional and human values and his loyalty to his homeland Simándy is an idol for the young generation of singers and for all of us.

In 1946 József Simándy’s operatic career started in Szeged, the music centre of South-Hungary that is famous for its flourishing culture of opera created under leadership of Viktor Vaszy. The competition salutes the great artist and man, the "Bánk bán" * of Hungary, who preserved his Hungarian identity and patriotism on international opera stages as well. 

 * "Bánk bán" is the title role of Hungarian national romantic opera composed by Ferenc Erkel. This role and the aria "My homeland, my homeland you mean everything to me" has melted together with the name: Simándy

Our values  

Over 20 years the József Simándy International Singing Competition has become one of the most significant classical singing competitions of Hungary and Central-Europe. The competition has discovered great number of singers who have become outstanding personalities and young stars of Hungarian and international opera and concert scene. Our Prize Winners became the creators of the Hungarian singing culture. Their work and artistic course makes them the outstanding representatives of our Hungarian national values. Many of them are awarded with the highest Hungarian musical and cultural recognition such as Liszt-Prize, Prima Primissima-Prize, Excellent Artist and Chamber Singer of The Hungarian State Opera.