Gyula Csapó is one of the most prominent of the composers who came out of the composition class (1983-87) of the late Morton Feldman. He is also a protégé of the late John Cage, upon whose recommendation ("I admire his work... He would very much enliven the musical life of whatever city in which he lives, and those to which he would go") he came to Canada in 1990 as a Permanent Resident. Csapó is Assistant Professor of Composition and Music Theory at the Department of Music, University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and Artistic Co-director of the fledgling annual Saskatoon New Music Festival he helped to establish.
Originally from "musical superpower" Hungary (a country where music education is among the highest levels in the world), he graduated from the Béla Bartók Conservatory and the List Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest in Composision and Music Theory (1974-81). He also studied privately with Zoltán Jeney and had musical consultations of decisive importance with Albert Simon and György Kurtág.
While still a student of the Academy, he was invited to join the New Music Studio - Hungary's leading avant-garde formation under the mentorship of György Kurtág - to work in close collaboration with Zoltán Jeney, László Sáry, László Vidovszky, Péter Eötvös, Zoltán Kocsis and others. His composition Handshake After Shot was premiered at the Great Hall of the Liszt Academy in Budapest at the suggestion of Zoltán Kocsis in 1979. In 1980, Csapó's stage work, Krapp's Last Tape after Samuel Beckett was performed at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music. Next year, the same piece made its way to the Sameul Beckett Festival held at the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt am Main.
In 1981 Csapó received a French Government Scholarship to pursue studies in musical acoustics and computer music with David Wessel and Stephen McAdams at IRCAM, Paris. Meanwhile, his music gained exposure all over Europe (Poland, Germany, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands). In 1983 he was awarded the Woodburn Fellowship (1983-87) to study with Morton Feldman in the United States. He taught at SUNY in Buffalo (1984-86) and completed his Ph.D. in Composition with financial help from the Soros Foundation (1987-89). At the recommendation of John Cage, Csapó was twice awarded grants from the Contemporary Performance Arts Foundation in New York City. Handshake after Shot received its US premiere at the Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center (1990) by the Contunuum Ensemble under the direction of Joël Sachs. In the same year, he was invited to teach Orchestration, Music Theory and Contemporary Music Ensemble at McGill University in Montreal (1990-91) as he became a permanent resident of Canada. He went back to the United states for three years (1991-94) to take up an appointment as Assistant Professor of Composition at Princeton University, and returned to Canada in 1994 to the position he is currently holding, helping New Music to take roots in Saskatoon.
His music is performed world-wide. In September 1994, Hungarian Television produced a program featuring Gyula Csapó's music. He had two full evening of his music in New York City (Experimental Intermedia Foundation, 1988, and The New York Society for Ethical Culture, 1993, sponsored by the American Music Theatre Group). The City of Köln sponsored a full evening of his works at the Alte Feuerwache in May, 1995. The compact disc recording of Csapó's "A Desert March" was issued on the lagel Open Space in the United States in 1995. The "Music of Our Time" Festival in Budapest regularly programs premieres of his compositions.
During the 1996-97 academic year, he became Fellow at Collegium Budapest - Institute for Advanced Study, where he continued to work on a five-act "musical tragedy", Phaedra, called by the late maestro Charles Bruck "the Pelléas of our time" during his visit to Princeton in 1992. In the same year, Csapó received a grant from the Canada Council to complete three electroacoustic works which are currently in progress. A new work was commissioned for CBC Saskatchewan, and is scheduled for its premiere during Spring, 1999 at the Saskatoon New Music Festival. After the Canadian premiere of "XPOHOI - In Memoriam Morton Feldman" in Ottawa, a full evening of Csapó's music took place in Paris, France in October, with the participation of the Modern quartet and also Marc Sabat as soloist in Krapp's Last Tape. A new CD of the first period of Csapó's has been recorded during June, 1997 for release and worldwide distribution, jointly sponsored by the Budapest Music Center and Editio Musica Budapest.
One of the leading composers of our time, György Kurtág wrote in his appraisal of Csapó's work: "His music... is answering the most timely questions with hours of exceptional quality. His musical language is highly original and strikingly powerful... His integrity and creative imagination... represents... one of the most important contributions in the field today."