Biography
Manoush Ruken Toth — “tremendous sense of style, energy and spirit! Panache and colour in abundance, with wonderfully well-articulated passagework. An obvious performer with innate communication skills!” (Norma Fisher)
Born in 2006 on La Palma (Canary Islands) into a German–Swiss–Hungarian family, Manoush began playing the violin at the age of two and took up the piano at the age of eight. In addition, she plays the harpsichord and organ and is active as a conductor. In 2025, she graduated with distinction from the Hochschule für Musik Basel, completing her Bachelor’s degree in the piano classes of Claudio Martínez Mehner and Zoltán Fejérvári, where she also received the music prize for outstanding achievement. She studied violin as a minor subject with Barbara Doll.
In 2022, she completed over two years of the “Corsi di Perfezionamento – Conducting from the Piano for Soloists” with Ricardo Castro in Fiesole/Florence. Within this framework, she conducted and performed Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 5 with the Orchestra of the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole. She has received further artistic inspiration from András Kemenes, Robert Levin, Arie Vardi, Leonidas Kavakos, Zlata Chochieva, Pavel Gililov, Lilya Zilberstein, and Maurice Steger.
Manoush is a prizewinner of numerous national and international competitions. In 2024, as the youngest participant, she won 3rd Prize at the Rahn Music Prize and was awarded first place in the soloist competition of the Valiant Forum. She has also won prizes at the International Beecham Piano Competition, the International Orbetello Piano Competition, the Steinway Piano Competition, the International Carl Maria von Weber Piano Competition, and received the WDR Klassik Prize. In 2021, she was awarded the Cultural Promotion Prize of the Lions Club Köniz in recognition of her achievements.
She made her first public appearance in 2013 at the Académie de Ravel in Saint-Jean-de-Luz (France), where Manoush and her brother Anatol Toth received enthusiastic acclaim on French television and in the press. Since then, she has performed regularly as a soloist as well as in duo and trio formations with her siblings, appearing at numerous festivals such as the Mantua Chamber Music Festival, Arosa Music Festival, Festival de Paradis, Gstaad Baroque Academy, and Murten Classics.
She made her orchestral debut as a violinist in 2015 at the Casino Bern and the Tonhalle Zurich. Further piano performances with orchestra include appearances with the Neojiba Orchestra under Ricardo Castro in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), the Norddeutsche Philharmonie as part of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival under Markus Bosch, the Budweis Symphony Orchestra, among others. In 2024, she performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto together with her siblings and the Erzgebirgische Philharmonie under the direction of Jens-Georg Bachmann. She also gained valuable experience as a junior juror at the Géza Anda Competition in 2024.
In June 2025, she performed Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Basel Chamber Orchestra as part of the final concerts of the Hochschule für Musik Basel, and in August she appeared with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra under Christoph-Matthias Müller at Murten Classics. Performing as Trio Toth with her siblings, she also played Beethoven’s Triple Concerto at Murten Classics in August before a sold-out audience, together with the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra.
Manoush is a scholarship holder of the International Lyceum Club Bern and the Friedl Wald Foundation. Beyond music, she has a strong passion for literature. In her free time, she enjoys conversing with her various facets of personality, from which poems and short stories occasionally emerge. In 2018, she became Swiss Junior Women’s Chess Champion and represented Switzerland at the Junior Girls’ World Championship in Santiago de Compostela.