Bagatell no. 2

'Round About Midnight

Born to a Hungarian musician family, his father Kálmán Oláh - a world renowned jazz pianist and composer - took responsibility for his early education in jazz piano and composing. Krisztián described his early inspirations: Krisztián graduated from Bela Bartok Conservatory in classical piano major, and as the time being he attends the jazz piano department of Franz Liszt University of Music and Musicology under the instruction of Professor Karoly Binder. In September 2020 he attended at the composition faculty of LFZE, where he is currently studying.
 
He was chosen the best soloist at 5th Jazz Competition of Marosvasárhely in April 2013. He was selected as one of the top four pianists in the Nottingham Solo Piano Competition in 2014. He was granted with.the special award for the most creative performance at the International Piano competition in Vilnius, Lithuania. He was only 20 when he finished third at the 2015 Montreux Jazz Festival. During the two-week academic program that followed, he appeared in concert with such greats as Al Jarreau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Nils Petter Molvær and Joe Sanders. In the same year he was awarded with the Creative Art Prize, the Junior Prima Prize and the Hungarian Jazz Prize of Gramofon Magazine. In 2016 the Hungarian Jazz Federation elected him young jazz musician of the year, and in 2018 he was the first Hungarian to be invited to the international competition that the American Thelonious Monk Institute organized for the world’s best fourteen jazz pianists. In 2022 he was awarded with two more prestigious Hungarian awards: Orszáczky-prize for best contemporary jazz composition is 2022, and Artisjus-prize.
In January of 2019 he founded his Quartet with top Hungarian musicians. He already released two albums of original music, At the back of my mind (2020) and Crescendo (2022). His piece for string orchestra and jazz quartet, Parallel Reflections was premiered with great success in October, 2020 at Solti Hall, Franz Liszt University of Music.

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