Kentaur is a Hungarian set and costume designer, painter and musician, who studied painting at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and graduated from the masterclass in murals. His works have been exhibited regularly since the end of the 1980s. But from his earliest youth, Kentaur has been interested in all forms of art. One of his ancestors was the famous composer Ferenc Erkel, who founded the Hungarian National Opera. Kentaur himself studied Classical Music for nine years and was lead singer and songwriter of a New Wave band. He recorded several solo albums in 1989 (New World), 1996 (Someone from the Lost City) and 2005 (Urban Stigma). He conceives, designs and creates all his concerts and video clips himself, combining music with elements of theatre, choreography and multimedia. Kentaur began his career in theatre as a graphic designer and subsequently turned to set and costume design. Since 1990, he has worked for every major Hungarian theatre on stage dramas (such as Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, “Hamlet” and “As You Like It”), musicals (including THE PRODUCERS, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, WEST SIDE STORY, PETER PAN, FOOTLOOSE, CHICAGO, CABARET and many more), operas (“Faust”, “Aida”, “Turandot”) and ballets (“Snow White” – Budapest and Tallinn – “Coppélia” – Vienna State Opera – “The Nutcracker” – Budapest, etc.), as well as working on film and TV productions. He was the first set designer in Hungary to use interactive live video technology on stage. In the area of visual design, he has worked on various productions of Shakespeare (MACBETH, HAMLET, AS YOU LIKE IT) and musicals (THE PRODUCERS, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, WEST SIDE STORY, PETER PAN, FOOTLOOSE, CHICAGO, CABARET). His international career began in 1995, when Cameron Mackintosh asked him to come up with a new stage design for MISS SAIGON. OLIVER and MARTIN GUERRE followed. He made his West End debut in 2002 with RENT at the Prince of Wales Theatre. He is set designer for Hungarian non-replica productions of musicals by ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER and CLAUDE MICHEL SCHÖNBERG. In Budapest, he was the first ever stage designer worldwide to redesign productions of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (2013) and THE BEAUTIFUL GAME (2005). His first theatre work in Austria was the set design for “Coppélia” at the Vienna State Opera in 2006. In the same year, he created the suggestive design for Roman Polanski’s DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES in Budapest, Vienna, Antwerp and St. Petersburg. He has won numerous awards, foremost among them the Jászai Prize in 2007, one the most important Hungarian national awards, and the Artist of Merit Award from the Hungarian state in 2013 in honour of his contribution to the theatre arts.