Horváth Márton Levente was born in Tapolca in 1983. He completed his elementary musical studies in Pápa and Balassagyarmat. At the Budapest Bartók Béla Music High School, he studied composition under Győr István Fekete and organ under Zsuzsán Elekes. In 2001, he became a student at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where his professors were János Vajda (composition) and Gábor Lehotka (organ). After obtaining his diplomas in 2006 and 2007, he continued his studies in the doctoral program at LFZE in the keyboard instrument subprogram. He earned his doctoral degree in 2014. He practices both as a composer and organist professionally.

Between 2003 and 2013, he served as the organist of the Szent László Church in Budapest-Kőbánya and as the organ accompanist for the Szent László Choir. Since 2010, he has been teaching at various institutions, including as a teacher at the Kodály Zoltán Hungarian Choir School since 2010 and as a part-time organ instructor at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music’s Department of Church Music since 2015. Additionally, he became an adjunct professor at the same department in 2018. He was also an adjunct professor at Pázmány Péter Catholic University in 2016-2017 and has been a composition teacher at the Bartók Béla Music High School since 2017. In 2016, he received the Erkel Ferenc Award in recognition of his work as a composer.

As a composer,
he won the first prize at the Liszt Ferenc Academy’s in-house composer competition in 2002 and 2004. He participated in Betsy Jolas’s composition masterclass in Villecroze, France, in 2003, and received scholarships from the Académie Musicale de Villecroze in 2004 and 2005. He used the scholarship to create his album “Till Now,” which was released by Hungaroton in 2005. He was awarded the Kodály Zoltán Artist Scholarship in 2008, 2009, and 2010. His works have been performed at various Hungarian festivals, and he has had his pieces played by renowned performers and ensembles in Hungary and abroad.

As an organist,
he gave his first solo concert in 2001 and has been performing regularly since then. He received the Annie Fischer Performance Scholarship in 2007. He attended several internationally renowned organist courses, including those by Ludger Lohmann, David Titterington, and Szathmáry Zsigmond. He participated in Olivier Latry’s courses at the Notre Dame in Paris three times (2003, 2004, 2008).

Horváth Márton Levente’s repertoire as an organist is highly diverse, ranging from the early Baroque to contemporary works. He frequently performs compositions by Bach, Buxtehude, Louis Couperin, Franck, Liszt, and Mendelssohn from the Baroque and Romantic periods, while also promoting 20th-century organ music. His favorite modern composers include Jehan Alain, Olivier Messiaen, Charles Tournemire, and Paul Hindemith. In addition to regularly performing his own organ compositions, he frequently interprets works by 20th-century and contemporary Hungarian composers such as Dohnányi, Lisznyay Szabó Gábor, and Maros Rudolf. He has been involved in numerous premieres, including works by Barta Gergely, Derecskei András, Fekete Gyula, Kákonyi Árpád, Kerékfy Márton, and Zombola Péter. He has performed as a soloist at the Sochi Organ Festival in Russia twice (2009, 2011) and has given concerts in Austria, Norway, and Slovakia. He also collaborates as an accompanist, chamber partner, and continuo player with various choirs, soloists, and orchestras. In 2011, under the baton of Zoltán Peskó, he performed Liszt Ferenc’s oratorio “Christus” with the Hungarian Radio’s music ensemble in Paris.

As a church musician,
he has been actively involved since the age of sixteen, considering church music service as the intersection of his vocation as a composer and organist. His compositional output includes numerous choral works specifically written for liturgical use. He currently serves as a cantor in two churches, the Szent Anna Parish Church in Budapest-Felsővíziváros and the Szent István Chapel in Császárfürdő.

His doctoral dissertation is also based on church music history research: his work entitled “A Genre in Illegality – Mass Compositions in Hungary between 1949 and 1969” examines the largely undiscovered Hungarian church music of the mid-20th century for historical reasons. The dissertation was expanded and reworked into book form in 2017.