Apolka Bonnyai graduated as a pianist from Ferenc Liszt University of Music in 2001, where her teachers were Dénes Várjon, Balázs Szokolay and András Kemenes professors of piano.  She received her Ph.D. here in 2013. In addition to her studies at the Academy of Music, she attended master classes by professors András Schiff, Malcolm Bilson, Ferenc Rados, Pavel Gililov, Dmitry Bashkirov, Lev Natochenny, Leslie Howard and Norma Fisher.

She has been granted with numerous scholarships and won international music competitions. As a winner of the Weingarten Scholarship, she studied with Professor Malcolm Wilson at the Birmingham Conservatoire in 1998. In 2005/2006, she was awarded the Terplan Research Fellowship, which made it possible for her to study at the University of Montclair, New Jersey, where she received a Certificate in Performing Arts there. In 2016 at the Salzburg Grand Prize International Music Competition Chamber Music Competition II. Prize, 2017 at the Vienna Grand Prize Piano Virtuoso won a prize. Also in 2017, she was invited to New York’s Carnegie Hall as the winner of the Golden Classical Music Awards.

In addition to her Hungarian concerts, Apolka Bonnyai has toured in many European countries (Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Sweden, England) and has performed in Japan and the USA. She played at the 9th Kyoto International Music Festival in Japan, where her performance was also recorded on CD. She has participated in the Yamaha Artist Liszt Festival in New York and has been very successful in concerts at the Hungarian Festival of Arts and Humanities in New York and New Jersey. She performed at a concert in honor of Dr. Charles Simonyi at the Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.). She is a regular guest at the Young Artists’ Podium at the Hungarian Radio, where her concerts were recorded. Her CD, which include the chamber works Schumann, was released in summer 2018.

Apolka Bonnyai has been teaching piano major at St. Stephen’s Secondary School of Music since 2001. She regularly judges at piano competitions and holds demonstration classes and masterclasses.