Csaba Onczay is one of the leading cellists of his generation. He received the Kossuth Prize (1993), the highest award given to any performing artist in all of Hungary. His excellent interpretation of Kodály`s Solosonata op.8., he was awarded the Liszt Prize in Budapest, Hungary (1976), and the Meritorious Artist (1986). He was also awarded the prestigious Bartók-Pásztory Prize in 2004. In 2019 he was presented by the Japanese Government award “Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon”. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
He has won various international prizes. They include: First Prize at the International Pablo Casals Competition in Budapest, Hungary (1973); First Prize at the International Villa Lobos Competition of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1976).
He is Professor Emeritus of Cello at the Liszt University of Music in Budapest, Hungary, where he resides today. He was a Visiting Professor at Freiburg University of Music, at Oberlin Conservatory in OH. From 2006 to 2009 he was a Visiting Professor at the Jacobs School of Music in Indiana University in Bloomington. He is a regular faculty member of the Summer String Academy at the IU Jacobs School of Music. Parallel with his activity of interpreter since 1978, he regularly holds master courses in Hungary, Europa, USA, Japan and Asia.
In addition to numerous concert recordings for radio and television, he has concertos of C.P.E. Bach, Schumann, Lalo, Villa Lobos, Dohnányi and also all the sonatas of Beethoven and all the solo suites of Bach. He is associated with the presentation of several contemporary music (Akutagawa, Gubaidulina, Dutilleux, Landowski, Lutoslawski, Penderecki); many Hungarian composers (Levente Gyöngyösi, Miklós Kocsár, Kamillió Lendvay, Sándor Szokolay) has written and dedicated their works especially for him.
Le Monde reported about him in August 1990:
More significant was the successful presence of Hungarian cellist Csaba Onczay,
with an extraordinary concentration, connected to a sound of “velvet” – disregarding any effects -… vivacious, deep, passionate, and sometimes with a “ghostly” character
… close to Casals for saying shortly.