Petra Somlai was born in Hungary where she graduated in conducting and piano performance at the Béla Bartók Conservatory (Budapest) and completed her modern piano degree at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music (Budapest) in 2007.
During these years the focus of her interest gradually turned to the authentic interpretation on period instruments. She studied fortepiano and harpsichord at the Birmingham Conservatory and later under the direction of Fabio Bonizzoni, Menno van Delft, and Bart van Oort at the Sweelinck Conservatory at Amsterdam and the Royal Conservatory at The Hague where she graduated summa cum laude in 2011. In 2010 Petra Somlai won first prize and the audience award at the International Fortepiano Competition in Bruges (Belgium). In the same year she received the National Junior Prima Primissima Award of Hungary as outstanding young artist.
She performs at major international early music festivals such as
- Musica Antiqua Festival - Brugge
- Early Music Festival - Utrecht
- Haydn Festival - Eszterháza
- Beethoven Festival - Bonn
- Beethoven Festival - Budapest
- Bach Festival - Dordrecht
- Klara Festival - Brussels
- AMUZ Festival - Antwerp
- Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci
She has given concerts all over Europe, the USA, and Japan. Since 2012 she has performed often as a conducting soloist with various orchestras. Petra Somlai was a professor of Early Keyboards on the faculty of University of North Texas (USA) from 2013-2015.
Currently she is professor of fortepiano at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague where she also teaches about the historical development of the fortepiano and the classical piano.