Dezső Ránki graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in 1973 after studying under Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados. Az the age of 18 he won the International Schumann Competition in Zwickau, and he has been performing concerts all over the world ever since. He has played with such ensembles as the Berlin and London Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France under the batons of such conductors as Georg Solti, Sándor Végh, Lorin Maazel and Zubin Mehta. Since 1985, he has been playing works for four hands and two pianos at concerts together with Edit Klukon; in recent years the two artists have performed in Berlin, Paris, Tokyo, New York and London. They have also recorded joint albums of compositions by Liszt, Satie and Dukay. Ránki has received many awards for his work, including the Liszt Award in 1973, the Kossuth Prize in 1978, the Budapest Metropolitan Artistic Award in 1982, the Bartók-Pásztory Award in 1988, the Prima Primissima Award in 2005 and the Middle Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 2006. He was also named an Artist of Merit in 1984 and an Artist of Excellence in 1990, and he was honoured with the Kossuth Prize for a second time in 2008.

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