Andor Földes

[1] Földes first studied the piano with his mother, Valerie Ipolye, and with Tibor Szatmari in his home town of Óbuda.

On 3 November 1947, he performed Bartók's Second Piano Concerto in the opening concert of the 18th season of the National Orchestral Association, conducted by Léon Barzin, at Carnegie Hall in New York City 1947.

Due to his European concert engagements being more plentiful than his American ones, he and his wife moved to Europe, settling in Switzerland in 1961.

Besides a large discography, which includes not only Bartók but also works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Falla, Debussy, Poulenc, Liszt, Schubert and Rachmaninoff, Földes was the author of "Keys to the Keyboard" (1948), an article in the Etude Magazine (USA) (December, 1953) "Impressions of a Musical Journey to Africa",[3] and an article "Beethoven's Kiss" in Reader's Digest (November 1986), also an autobiography 70 Years on Music's Magic Carpet (published 2004).

Among his awards are the Grand Cross of Merit, given by Germany in 1959 for his help in raising funds to have the Beethoven Halle in Bonn rebuilt, and the Silver Medal of the City of Paris, given in 1969.