Valér Jobbágy receives the Pro Cultura Christiana Prize
Liszt Academy’s teacher, Valér Jobbágy has been awarded the prize by the Hungarian Catholic Episcopal Conference in recognition of his twenty-five years of service as the first externally appointed choir conductor of the Pécs Cathedral, for his work leading the Palestrina Chorus and his activities promoting Catholic culture.
Valér Jobbágy was born in 1947 in Csokonyavisonta. After studying in the clarinet faculty of the Pécs Secondary School of the Arts, he graduated from the Liszt Academy as both choir conductor and clarinet teacher. While still a college student, he led the Pécs Cathedral Youth Choir, and worked as a young teacher in the music secondary school.
He assumed leadership of the Pécs Cathedral Palestrina Choir in 1988. The choir accompanies bishop and chapter masses with performances of devotional compositions, motets, Gregorian and Renaissance songs as well as polyphonic works from the early Baroque. The accompanying commendation also draws attention to his lengthy collaboration with the Szekszard Madrigal Choir and the Schola Cantorum Sopianensis.
In the year of his appointment, Valér Jobbágy won the First European Choir Conducting Competition in Trento, and since 1990 has been a teacher at the Liszt Academy. In 2009 he was awarded the Liszt Prize. He has won and been a prize winner at numerous leading European choir competitions, and served as a jury member at several leading competitions. His international renown is largely due to this towering interpretations of church music.
The Pro Cultura Christiana Prize was handed over to Valér Jobbágy by the president of the Hungarian Catholic Episcopalian Conference, Cardinal Péter Erdő, Archbishop of Esztergom and Budapest on September 3rd in Budapest.