György Gulyás, a Liszt Ferenc Prize-winning Meritorious Artist, choral conductor, and college professor, was born on April 1, 1916, in Köröstarcsa, Hungary.

He pursued his musical studies between 1934 and 1942 at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, specializing in secondary school music education as a student of Jenő Ádám. During this time, he also studied composition under such epoch-making masters as Albert Siklós and Zoltán Kodály.

Following his graduation, he spent five years from 1941 working as a music teacher at the Dóczi Teacher Training College in Debrecen. In 1946, he became the founding director of the legendary Békés-Tarhos Music High School, leading the institution until 1954. He then returned to Debrecen, where he directed the Secondary School of Music for over a decade, until 1966. Parallel to this, in 1955, he founded the Kodály Chorus of Debrecen, a choir with which he later achieved outstanding success and earned prestigious awards at numerous international competitions. As the pinnacle of his career in institutional leadership, he directed the Debrecen branch of the Teacher Training Institute at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1966 to 1976.

As a tireless figure in Hungarian musical life, he held countless professional positions and was regularly invited to judge prestigious competitions. His multifaceted career is marked by numerous audio recordings, world premieres of works by Hungarian composers, and the Hungarian premieres of foreign compositions. Furthermore, he enriched musical discourse through his articles and essays published in professional journals and periodicals.

Founded by him in 1961, the Béla Bartók International Choir Competition (BBCC) has become one of the world’s most prestigious musical competitions, dedicated to the high-level presentation of contemporary 20th and 21st-century a cappella choral works.

He passed away on November 11, 1993, in the 78th year of his life.