Pianist Gyorgy Sandor dead at 93

NEW YORK, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- Famed pianist Gyorgy Sandor has died of heart failure in New York at age 93.

The Budapest native who studied with Bartok and Kodaly at the Liszt Academy of Music died at home Friday, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Sandor started traveling as a concert pianist in the 1930's and settled in the United States after his Carnegie Hall debut in 1939.

He recorded the complete solo piano works of Prokofiev and Kodaly, and the piano music and concertos of Bartok, for which he won the Grand Prix du Disque in 1965, the Times said.

Sandor was still touring worldwide after suffering a heart attack three years ago and played his last concert in April in Turkey.

He taught at Southern Methodist University from 1956 to 1961 and was the director of graduate studies in piano at the University of Michigan until 1981. He joined the piano faculty at the Juilliard School in 1982.

In 1981, he wrote "On Piano Playing: Motion, Sound and Expression" and recently completed a manuscript about Bartok and his music.

He is survived by a son and two stepdaughters.