Born in Budapest, Gábor Takács-Nagy began to study the violin at the age of eight. In 1979, while a student at the Franz Liszt Academy, he won First Prize in the Jeno Hubay Violin Competition, and later pursued studies with Nathan Milstein. He is considered one of today’s most authentic exponents of Hungarian music, and in particular that of Béla Bartók, having studied the string quartets of Bartók with Zoltán Székely, the composer’s best friend and dedicatee of the composer’s Second Violin Concerto. He was awarded the Liszt Prize in 1982 and, in March 2017, the prestigious Béla Bartók-Ditta Pásztory Prize. In March 2021 he received the Érdemes Muvész award for Artist of Merit, presented by the Hungarian government to artists of long service in the field of Hungarian national culture, and in December that year the Prima Primissima Prize, reserved for artists, athletes, and representatives of scientific life, culture, and education for their performances and exemplary human qualities and values.

From 1975 to 1992 he was founding member and leader of the acclaimed Takács Quartet, performing throughout the world with artists of the first rank. In 1996 he founded the Takács Piano Trio, with which he made world première recordings of works by the Hungarian composers Franz Liszt, László Lajtha, and Sándor Veress. In 1998 he established the Mikrokosmos String Quartet, which received the Excellentia Award of the magazine Pizzicato for its 2008 recording of the complete cycle of Bartók’s quartets.

In 2002, following a long Hungarian musical tradition, Gábor Takács-Nagy turned to conducting and in 2007 became Music Director of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. He was Music Director of the MAV Symphony Orchestra Budapest from 2010 to 2012, has been Music Director of Manchester Camerata, one of the UK’s leading chamber orchestras, since September 2011, and was named Principal Guest Conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra in September 2012. A dedicated and highly sought-after chamber music teacher, he was Professor of String Quartet at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva until August 2021. Gábor Takács-Nagy was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London in June 2012.