Várallyay Petra

Petra Várallyay returns to the Opus stage with her solo project. Her distinctive music is inspired by the harmonic world of modal jazz, the asymmetrical rhythms of Balkan music, and Far Eastern sound systems. Her unique playing style incorporates the richness of contemporary music, the conversational nature of folk music, the spontaneity of jazz, and the rawness of rock music. Live looping plays an important role in her solo concerts, opening up new dimensions in the stage performance of instruments and vocals. The musical material, born in the magic of the moment, is based on both concrete compositional ideas and improvisation, thus transforming a single vocal thread into a polyphonic choir sound, and melancholic soundscapes into dynamic orchestral performances – in an exciting duality of repetition and unrepeatability.

Petra Várallyay studied jazz piano, jazz singing, classical violin and jazz composition at the Bartók Conservatory in Budapest, the Academy of Music, and the jazz department of the Conservatorium Maastricht in the Netherlands. As a composer and performer, she is equally at home on the cult concert venues of the underground music scene and on the stages of the most prestigious concert halls. She has worked with Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma and has performed at numerous festivals in Hungary and abroad, covering a wide spectrum of genres. His progressive fusion jazz trio, formed in 2014, has received numerous international accolades, including the 2017 Sibiu International Jazz Competition "Best Instrumentalist" award and the Independent Music Awards (USA) audience award for their album Deadline Haze, created to recognize independent performers and creators. In recent years, he has received the Orszáczky Award, the Junior Artisjus and Junior Prima Awards, and the Creative Art Award, the grand prize of the piano improvisation competition founded by György Vukán.