Ferenc Farkas (15/12/1905 - 10/10/2000), a Hungary composer and writer on music, born in Nagykanizsa. He studied composition with Albert Sikós and Leó Weiner at the Budapest Academy of Music and continued his studies with Ottorino Respighi at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Ferenc Farkas was Professor of Composition at the Conservatory of Kolozsvár from 1941 to 1944 and also served as its director during his last year there. In 1949 Farkas was appointed Professor of Composition at the Budapest Academy of Music, a post which he held until his retirement in 1975. His pupils included Attila Bozay, Axolt Durkó, György Kurtág, György Ligeti, Emil Petrovics, Sándor Szokolay and many other prominent Hungarian composers. In 1950, Ferenc Farkas was awarded the highest Hungarian government decoration for artistic merit, the Kossuth Prize. In 1979, he was given the Herder Prize by the F.V.Stiftung in Hamburg. (Ersébet Gaál)
Ferenc Farkas was one of Hungary’s greatest 20th-century composers. Despite this, his large opus for solo guitar and all possible combinations of chamber music instruments is not being played today as much as it deserves.