He was born in Budapest, and began his music studies playing the trumpet, the cello and the piano. He graduated as a conductor from Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where his master was Ervin Lukács; subsequently, he continued developing his skills at László Somogyi's course in Szombathely and with Kurt Masur in Weimar. He participated in Franco Ferrara's master class in Siena with Leonard Bernstein's scholarship; and attended Leonard Bernstein's, Seiji Ozawa's and Gennady Rozhdestvensky's courses with Sir George Solti's scholarship. In 1986 he won third prize and the audience's prize at the 5th Conducting Competition of the Hungarian Television, and won the Toscanini Conducting Competition in Parma, Italy in the same year. 

He has appeared as an opera conductor in many opera houses in metropolises around the world, conducting opera productions at the Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), the Teatro Municipal (São Paolo), the Würtembergische Staatstheater (Stuttgart), the Hamburg Opera House, the National Theatre in Mannheim, the Opera House in Rome, the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova, the Verona Arena, the Teatro Lirico "G. Verdi" di Triest, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Teatro Gerio in Parma, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Lyric Opera in Chicago. 

He has conducted concerts with orchestras including the Radio of the Berlin Radio, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, the Luxembourg RTL Orchestra, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, the Brabant Orchestra, the Netherlands, the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon, the Chile Symphony Orchestra, the RAI Orchestra in Milan, the ORT Orchestra in Florence, the Toscanini Orchestra in Parma, the Swiss-Italian Radio Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Zagreb Radio Orchestra, the Ljubljana Philharmonics, the Ljubljana Radio Orchestra, the Symphonic Orchestra of the Hungarian Radio, the State Concert Orchestra, Hungary, the Orchestra of the Budapest Philharmonic Society, the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra, the Sofia Philharmonic, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Taipei City Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of the Italian Radio, the Verdi Orchestra, Milan and the Orchestra of the Verona Arena. He has collaborated with the most prominent artists at concerts and opera productions. Among others, Marcello Alvarez, Renato Bruson, Ray Charles, José Cura, Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Daniella Dessi, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Maria Guleghina, Sumi Jo, Zoltán Kocsis, Ildikó Komlósi, Gidon Kremer, Sergei Leiferkus, Éva Marton, Elena Mosuc, Francesca Patane, László Polgár, Dezső Ránki, Vadim Repin, Sylvia Sass, Gabriele Schnaut, Luciana Serra, Grigory Sokolov, Alan Titus, Ilona Tokody, Carol Vaness and Lylia Zilberstein has sung or played under his baton. 

1986-1992 Permanent Guest Conductor with the RAI Symphony Orchestra, Torino  

1989-1992 Principal Guest Conductor with the Zagreb Philharmonic  

1990-1996 Permanent Guest Conductor with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Seville  

1993- 1995 Principal Conductor and Director of Music with the Rome Chamber Orchestra and Choir  

2001-2002 Director of Music and Artistic Director at the Hungarian State Opera House  

2002-2004 Principal Guest Conductor with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra  

since 2005 Permanent Guest Conductor with the Hamburg Staatsoper  

2006 Mandatory Director of Music at the Hungarian State Opera Budapest 

since 2008 Permanent Guest Conductor at the Hungarian State Opera Budapest 

since 4 October 2010 Mandatory Music Director at the Hungarian State Opera Budapest