Hungarian Composer and Neurobiologist to Receive the Prestigious Wolf Prize

Hungarians are also honored with the prestigious Wolf Prize in Israel this year, with composer György Kurtág and neurobiologist Botond Roska receiving the award.

The winners of the USD 100,000 Wolf Prize, awarded annually in the fields of mathematics, medicine, physics, agriculture and music, were announced on Wednesday evening after a five-month delay due to the war in Gaza.

This year, nine scientists and artists from the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, Hungary, France and Switzerland are honored with the recognition.

The music prize was awarded to György Kurtág. “Kurtág’s influence on contemporary classical music is felt worldwide, and his compositions are appreciated by musicians and audiences alike. His works show intensity and a keen introspection, capturing the human condition in a condensed but emotional musical form – one of the reasons why the international jury awarded the Wolf Prize to him.” The 98-year-old György Kurtág joins such greats as Pierre Boulez and György Ligeti, Plácido Domingo and Paul McCartney, Ádám Fischer and Yehudi Menuhin.

“György Kurtág receives the Wolf Prize because he is a true musician and a brilliant man. His music, dealing with existential questions of the human soul, focuses on fundamental emotions such as love and grief, fear, anxiety, despair, and the desire for harmony and reconciliation,” reads the official communication.

Botond Roska, who lives in Switzerland and was born and educated in Hungary, shared the prize with French scientist José-Alain Sahel, who works in France and the United States. Botond Roska has been awarded the 2024 Wolf Prize in Medicine

for his significant research achievements in the restoration of vision in blind people using ontogenetic tools.

The recognition is commonly referred to in the scientific community as a precursor to the Nobel Prize, given that several Wolf Prize winners have gone on to win Nobel Prizes, the statement emphasized.

Botond Roska is currently director of the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB) in Switzerland and founder and researcher of the BrainVisionCenter (BVC) in Hungary. For his research at the BVC in Hungary, the government has provided HUF 5.2 billion (EUR 13 million) in funding between 2022 and 2024. He has also been actively researching in Hungary for several years.

Balázs Hankó, the Minister of Culture and Innovation, expressed his appreciation and congratulations to Botond Roska, as the dedication and hard work of excellent researchers is essential to strengthen Hungarian innovation and make it competitive. “The Hungarian government provides an attractive and stable environment for excellent domestic and foreign talents like Botond Roska to carry out their research in Hungary, which is why the National Research Excellence Program has been established to provide funding for excellent Hungarian researchers to carry out their research.”

The program has been launched this year with a 40 percent higher budget than in previous years and the amount of funding available per project has also increased significantly.

Via MTI; Featured image via Facebook/Wolf Prize