János Négyesy was born in Budapest, Hungary and studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and later at Detmold in Germany. He left Hungary in 1965 and from 1970-74 was concertmaster of the Berlin Radio Orchestra. He lived and worked in Paris, Vienna and new York before joining the UCSD faculty in 1979. Long an advocate of new music, Mr. Négyesy has appeared at major festivals throughout the world. In addition to performing, recording and teaching he has written a definitive study of contemporary violin techniques. Recently he has been receiving acclaim for his expertise as master of the Mathews' electronic violin. In addition to his interest in new music, he is an exponent of the standard violin repertoire, as well. Some of Mr. Négyesy's landmark recordings include the first European recording of the complete "Violin and Piano Sonatas of Charles Ives" with pianist Cornelius Cardew and a recording of works specifically dedicated to him by important contemporary composers such as Attila Bozay, Carlos Fariñas, Vinko Globokar, Robert Wittinger and Isang Yun. He recently recorded "Aether", a piece written for him by Roger Reynolds, who also finished a violin concerto for Mr. Négyesy, Personae was premiered in San Diego with the SONOR ensemble in March 1990 and a CD was released in Spring 1992. He gave the world premièe of John Cage's "Freeman Etudes I-XVI" in Torino, Italy in 1984 and "XVII-XXXII" in Ferrare, Italy in 1991. The complete "Etudes" will be released in January of 1995 on Newport Classics Records on a double CD.
The complete Bartók "Duos" for two violins - with Päivikki Nykter - was released by NEUMA Records in June 1993.
"Dedications 2" with solo works written especially for Mr. Négyesy and a CD with solo compositions by Bartók, Berio and Xenakis will be available late 1995 as well, by NEUMA Records.