Three Hungarian Pianists in the Final of the Montreux Jazz Festival

The Parmigiani Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition for young professionals under the age of 30 is organized for the 17^th time this year within the Festival itself. For the first selection the candidates had to send in entries that include a CD with the artist’s three recordings – one standard and one freely selected piece, as well as an own composition. The ten best pianists qualified for the semi-finals will have to perform in front of the jury at the Montreux Jazz Festival in two rounds on 5-6 July. The names of the chair and members of the jury – previously presided by, among others, George Duke, Randy Weston, John Lewis and Leszek Możdżer, who is to perform at the Liszt Academy in  the Fall Season – are to be revealed later.

The competition delivers wide international scope receiving, besides the Hungarian contestants, pianists from China, Japan, Italy and the USA. Two of the three Hungarian jazz musicians who have made it to the final, Áron Tálas and Krisztián Oláh, are piano students at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music; the former is also a member of the university’s teaching staff as a coach, while the latter has just started his first semester at the academy this year. Hungarian pianists have already won the competition in three previous years:  in 2000 Dániel Szabó, in 2001 Róbert Lakatos and in 2004 Róbert Botos collected the first prize.

Congratulations to all three finalists and good luck in the contest in July!