Dóra Kokas was born in 1992 and has already established herself as one of the leading cellists of her generation, performing regularly as a soloist with orchestras and as a chamber musician. Dóra studied at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy under the direction of Miklós Perényi and she was also a student of the Razumovsky Academy in London in the class of Professor Oleg Kogan.
She has been awarded top Prizes in national and international cello competitions since her childhood. In September 2016, Dóra won 2nd prize at the 23. International Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria. In 2015, She has received the Gundel Prize in Hungary and in October She became the winner of Junior Prima Prize in Hungary. Dóra also won two prizes at the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in Budapest in September 2014. In the December of 2014 she won the Liszt Academy Soloist Competition in Budapest, Hungary.
Dora has performed in ensembles with Joshua Bell, Ferenc Rados, Joseph Lendvay, Pekka Kuusisto, Nicholas Altstaedt, Maxim Rysanov, José Gallardo and Peter Frankl, Jonathan Cohen, Alexander Rudin, Vilde Frang, Sergei Nakarjakov, Alexander Sitkovetsky and Boris Brovtsyn among others.
Dóra has performed Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto at the Young Talents International Music Festival’s Gala Concert in Kaunas – Lithuania in April 2006 with the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra. She had played at some of Europe’s famous concert halls such as the Mozarteum of Salzburg, the Teatro Malibran of Venice, including recitals in Verona, Ljubljana, Klagenfurt, Brussels, Budapest, Pécs, and Kaposvár. At the early age of nine years, Dóra played a recital at the Prussia Cove International Music Seminar in England with Péter Nagy, pianist.
She has also performed with the Zagreb Chamber Orchestra and the MÁV Chamber-Symphony Budapest, conducted by Gábor Takács-Nagy. In 2010, Dóra performed Haydn’s G-Major Trio with Zoltán Kocsis and Barnabás Kelemen.
Dóra is a founding member of the Prize Winning Kelemen Quartet (2010-2015) , one of Hungary’s leading ensembles. Apart from concerts in Melbourne, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria and Croatia, the quartet has been re-invited after its successful debut tour in the USA (New York, Greenwich, Dallas), India and Australia. Kelemen Quartet won the 2nd Prize, the Audience Prize and the ‘Musica Viva’special Prize at the 6th International Chamber Music Competition in Melbourne 2011. They also received 1st prize at the Beijing International Quartet Competition and in 2014 they won the gold medal at the Premio Paolo Borciani Competition in Reggio Emilia.
Dóra attended masterclasses with János Starker, Steven Isserlis, Gary Hoffman, Jens Peter Meinz, Wolfgang Boettcher, Jonathan Cohen, Miklós Perényi, László Mező, Csaba Onczay.
Dóra is performing on a cello built by Joseph Homolka in Kuttenberg(1863), with a bow made by P. Serdet – Paris.
