Laszlo Varga (cellist)

Laszlo Varga (December 13, 1924 – December 11, 2014) was a Hungarian-born American cellist who had a worldwide status as a soloist, recording artist, and authoritative cello teacher.

As a Jewish person, Varga lost his position at the Budapest Symphony during WW II and was later interned by Hungarian authorities in a Nazi labor camp.

For 11 years Varga held the position as principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic under the baton of the orchestra's music directors Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leonard Bernstein, and many guest conductors including Fritz Reiner and Guido Cantelli. He performed as soloist with orchestras in countries such as Australia, Japan, USA, the former Soviet Union, and throughout Europe. In music festivals such as Aspen, Chautauqua, and Shreveport, he has been spotlighted during the last 40 years for his duties as a soloist, chamber musician and teaching mentor. During this time recorded a multitude of disks for numerous labels including Columbia, CRI, Decca, EMI, Musicelli, Period, Philips, RCA, Serenus, and Vox. Many composers throughout the world have requested that Mr. Varga give the first performance of their works.

As a chamber musician he was a member of groups such as the Borodin Piano Trio, the Canadian String Quartet, the Léner String Quartet, the Trio Concertante, and the Crown Chamber Players. Indiana University awarded Varga with the title of Chevalier du Violoncelle for having dedicated his career as a teacher and soloist for the improvement of cello playing. He taught the cello at San Francisco State University (where he also taught conducting and oversaw the chamber music program), University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Toronto and the University of Houston, from which he retired in 2000.

He has the great pleasure of having many of his students landing jobs in orchestras and in universities throughout the globe. He routinely holds master classes and performs in recitals as well as conducts large groups of cello ensembles on all sides of the globe. Many of these take place during the various international Cello Congresses. He has been the conductor of orchestras in Budapest, Hungary and San Leandro, California, as well as Festivals in Aspen, Colorado and Shreveport, Louisiana. He not only conducted the Virtuosi of New York and the Virtuosi of San Francisco but he was founder of both of them. He has arranged many works of music which are published by MusiCelli Publications. Groups such as the Yale Cellos, the Saito Cello Ensemble, CELLO for Sony/Philips, MusiCelli, the Los Angeles I Cellisti, as well as his own New York Philharmonic Cello Quartet have recorded his arrangements.

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