Krisztián Oláh is an Artisjus, Junior Prima and two-time Orszáczky Prize-winning pianist and composer whose career has taken off like a rocket: at the age of 17 he won the soloist prize at the International Jazz Competition in Târgu Mures, and in the following years he performed with great success at several European competitions in England, Lithuania and the Netherlands. At the age of 20, he was awarded third place at the Montreux Jazz Festival, which gave him the opportunity to attend a two-week academic training course, where he performed with such jazz greats as Al Jarreau, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Joe Sanders. In the following years, he won the Junior Prima, Creative Art, Orszáczky and Gramophone Prizes, and in 2018 he was the first Hungarian jazz pianist to reach the Washington final of the Thelonious Monk Institute International Piano Competition.In December 2022, he won the Artisjus Prize, and in February 2023 he was awarded the Creative Artist Prize at the Cziffra Festival.Since September 2021, he has been a lecturer at the jazz department of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.His outstanding musical talent was already evident at a very young age. The family environment in which he grew up was inspiring and supportive of his abilities, and he was able to learn according to his talents at a very early age.
Classical musical elements and compositional techniques are an important part of his music, as are the improvisational drift and abstract rhythms of contemporary jazz. His main musical motivation is to connect and synthesise these two musical worlds as organically as possible, with the aim of creating a dynamic, living contemporary musical world.His way of thinking about music and composition changed fundamentally when he started studying composition at the Liszt Academy in 2020. Compared to his debut At the back of my mind (2020), the material of Crescendo (2022) is an important imprint of his developmental phase, as he turns from impulsive instinctive writing to consciousness. Their third album, Music for 24/7, was released in spring 2023. The follow-up to Crescendo features a special contribution from one of Britain's emblematic wind sections, the TRYPL Horns (Ryan Quigley, Paul Booth, Trevor Mires).
The Quartet premiered the new material with this expanded, seven-piece line-up to a sold-out audience at the Hungarian House of Music.The Quartet is Krisztián's most important musical project, and it is palpable, not only through the songs, but also through the atmosphere that these four musicians (Kálmán Oláh - saxophone, Marcell Gyányi - double bass, Dániel Serei - drums) are able to create. While the band's programme is based on Krisztián's own compositions, the members are all great improvisers, so spontaneous and collective improvisation is an integral part of the production, which incorporates the spirit and musical tools of the day, thus creating a fresh and complex sound for the band.
Oláh Kálmán - saxophones
Gyányi Marcell - double bass
Serei Dániel - drums
Oláh Krisztián - piano
