György Kurtág was born on 19 February 1926 in Lugoj, in Romania. In 1946, he enrolled at the Budapest Conservatory, where he studied piano, composition and chamber music. After completing his studies, he temporarily moved to Paris, where he took lessons with Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud in the years 1957-1958. The newly gained insight into composition was liberating for Kurtág and decisive for his further career.

From 1958 to 1963, Kurtág worked as a repetitor at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music in Budapest and from 1960 to 1968 at the National Philharmonic. During the years 1967 to 1986, he worked at the Liszt Academy where he taught piano and chamber music. In 1986, he officially retired but continued to teach in practice until 1993.

In the 1980s Kurtág's international breakthrough came; initially because of his work as a music educator (he was the teacher of master pianist Zoltán Kocsis) but later also as a composer. He worked with, among others, The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. His efforts were rewarded with several international commissions and prizes, including the prestigious Grawemer Award for Music Composition for his work Concertante Op. 42.