Hungarian-born Agnes Kory is the founder and director of the Béla Bartók Centre for Musicianship, London, where specialised music studies including performance skills are offered and scholarship is fostered. The Béla Bartók Centre for Musicianship (BBCM) offers comprehensive music education for amateurs and children of all ages as well as provides training courses to further the skills of professional musicians. The BBCM training is supported by some of the world’s greatest musicians.
Agnes Kory is a graduate of the Béla Bartók Conservatoire Budapest, Royal Academy of Music London (DipRAM) and the University of London (BMus, MMus, MPhil). She is a teacher, performer and also a researcher in historical musicology.
Agnes Kory's MPhil thesis on Bartók and Ethnomusicology was highly praised by the examiners for the University of London in December 2004. They deemed the thesis far reaching in importance for future Bartók scholars and they urged publication. In May 2006, Agnes Kory was awarded the Béla Bartók Memorial Prize for her research and presentations on Bartók and for her work in music education. More recently, in February 2007 Agnes Kory received the Pro Cultura Hungarica award from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture.
Agnes Kory's scholarly publications include:
'A wider role for the tenor violin?' Galpin Society Journal, 1994, pp. 123-153.
'Leopold Wilhelm and his patronage of music with special reference to opera', Studia Musicologica, 1995, pp. 11-25.
'Boccherini and the cello', Early Music, Vol. XXXIII, No. 4, November 2005, pp. 749 -751.
'The significance of the tenor violin', The Consort, vol. 62, Summer 2006, pp. 63 – 91.
Book review of Schneider, David E; Bartók, Hungary and the Renewal of Tradition, University of California Press, in Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol.16, No.1, June 2007, pp. 174 -176.
From 1970 to 1972 Agnes Kory was principal cellist of the Royal Ballet orchestra, Royal Opera House and from 1974 to 1987 she was a cellist of the English National Opera orchestra.
She regularly contributes to several music websites, both in English and Hungarian, as well as writing in various hard-copy journals.
In March 2007, Agnes Kory co-founded and helped to establish the reputation of MusicalCriticism.com with Dominic McHugh.