Máté Bella

Máté Bella was born 28 November 1985 in Budapest, Hungary.

Bella began his musical studies at Ferenc Erkel Primary School for Music. He later attended the Weiner Leó Secondary Music School in Budapest, where he specialized in composition and piano.^[5] He continued his music education between 2002 and 2006 at the Béla Bartók Music Institute, where he focused on composition under the mentorship of Miklós Kocsár.^[6] After graduating in 2006, he was admitted to the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, where he completed his studies in 2011.^[7] In 2013, he spent a semester at the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków on an Erasmus scholarship.^[8] Máté was awarded a scholarship for the New National Excellence Program in 2017, and in 2018, he received his summa cum laude doctoral degree.^[8]

In 2009, he won the New Hungarian Music Forum composer competition, organized by Müpa Budapest and the Budapest Music Center.^[9] This was followed by the recognition of his ensemble piece Chuang Tzu's Dream by the International Music Council in Lisbon in 2010.^[10] This piece was performed by the London Sinfonietta. That same year he became the first composer to receive the Junior Prima Award, which recognizes individuals under 30 for outstanding achievements in various fields.^[11][12] In 2011, one of his compositions, written for a play at the Hungarian National Theatre, won the Theatre Critics Award.^[2] He received the Erkel Ferenc Award in 2016 and the Bartók-Pásztory Award in 2019.^[13] His song Mostantól (From Now On), co-written with Gergő Rácz, won the A Dal 2020 competition, receiving the Petőfi Music Award for Song of the Year^[14] and the Hungarian Music Awards Fonogram prize for Best Hungarian Modern Pop/Rock Album or Recording of the Year.^[15] In 2025, he won the Artisjus Award in the 'Classical Music Work of the Year' category for his composition The Cheerleaders.

Bella is a member of the Artisjus Committee of Classical Music Critics,^[16] the Association of Hungarian Composers,^[17] and the 'Musician/Composer' section of the Hungarian Film Academy Association.^[18] He is also a co-founder of Studio 5, a contemporary composers' group established in 2016.^[7]

From 2019 to 2024, he served as a senior lecturer at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and has been an associate professor since 2024,^[19] and he habilitated in 2025.