Gábor Lehotka has been played on NTS in shows including Open Hand Real Flames , featured first on 23 January 2019. Songs played include Pastorale BWV 590.

Gábor Lehotka (Vác, 1938. July 20 - – Vác, 2009. December 29) Franz Liszt Prize-winning Hungarian organist, composer, organ expert, meritorious artist.

Biography: He started playing music in Vác when he was in elementary school. Between 1953 and 1958 he studied at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music; His organ teachers were János Hammerschlag, Kálmán Halász and Ferenc Gergely, and he studied composition with Rezső Sugár.

He began his higher education studies in 1958 at the organ department of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest as a student of Sebestyén Pécsi, where he graduated with honors in 1963. At the same time, he graduated from 1961 to 1966 in composition. His teacher here was Endre Servánszky.

His solo career began in Hungary in 1963 and in the international concert scene in 1965. He gave concerts all over Europe, mostly in Germany, France and the Soviet Union. He also gave concerts at Notre Dame in Paris and at the church of Saint-Germain-Des-Prés. For two decades he was a regular guest at the Avignon Festival in Grignan. From 1978 he also returned to composition: he composed not only organ works, but also orchestral, chamber and choral works.

He also taught: between 1969 and 1985 at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music, and from 1975 at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he also headed the organ department.

He retired in 2008. In the same year (fifty years after his first college admission) he was admitted to the correspondence department of the Sola Scriptura Theological College. After a long illness, he died in the Jávorszky Ödön Hospital in Vác.

Organ expertise: The first organ was built in Vác in 1976 with the participation of Gábor Lehotka. Later he participated in the construction of several other instruments, such as the organ of the Vigadó, the Academy of Music and the Dohány Street Synagogue.

Works: On 5 October 2003, at the celebration of the 40th anniversary of his career, he premiered his Hommage à Handel organ concerto and his oratorio on the Sermon on the Mount at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.