Courtesy of Adam Gyorgy He may only be 28 years old, but Adam Gyorgy’s virtuosic performances have already struck a chord with audiences in Europe, Asia and the US.
One immediately senses Gyorgy is a consummate professional on and off the stage. He greets me with a warm smile; his handshake exudes an almost zealous courteousness.
Once he starts talking, however, it appears his conversational demeanor is punctuated by a measured intensity. One detects an underlying ardor — this is no surprise, considering that music is his all-consuming passion — but it is never overwrought. And maybe this is somewhat apt. As a classical musician, Gyorgy must summarily evoke tempestuous passions and emotions of the music whilst ensuring his execution is under control. The key, of course, lies in a delicate balance.
This year marks Gyorgy’s seventh visit to Indonesia. By the time he leaves Jakarta, he will
have performed a range of improvisation and traditional classical repertories at Usmar Ismail Hall and an invitation-only charity concert at the Ritz-Carlton Ballroom.
His father, an engineer and “wonderful musician”, first encouraged his passion for music. He started to learn the piano at the age of four, before being accepted into the Bela Bartok Conservatory as a prodigy at the age of 12.
Five years later, he won the National Youth Piano Competition, and at 18 he won Hungary’s Pianist Award.
He has been touring the world for 10 years. More recently, he joined an illustrious list of pianists who have been invited to play at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall.
He attributes Hungary’s rich classical music tradition as a factor for his success.
“Europe is the cradle of classical music, and Hungary is the home of Liszt and Bartok,” he says.
“The music I play was composed in the architectural context of Europe. When you walk around Vienna or Budapest, you are walking around the same buildings where these composers have also walked hundreds of years ago.”
It is this sense of history that Gyorgy finds so enlightening — and he is even more fascinated by how musical history adapts and translates across geographical, cultural and chronological boundaries.
“It’s been a privilege to build bridges between different cultures,” he says. “As a European classical musician — travelling to America and all over Asia — it has been a fantastic experience seeing how these cultures blend together through the language of music.”
Certainly, music’s universality holds an undeniable appeal for Gyorgy.
“People often say we have to break down the walls between classical and popular music,” he says. “But I don’t think we need to break them down, because there are no walls. It is just music.”
Thus, communication and engagement with his audience is of foremost priority. He sees every performance as an open dialogue.
“I make sure my performances are consonant, so that audiences are drawn in,” he explains.
“I start my concerts with improvisations, which are not quite classical or jazz — but they are contemporary. This helps the audience feel at ease.”
The improvisations are then followed by his extensive repertoire, which typically involves piano’s greatest romantics: Liszt, Mendelssohn and Chopin, to name a few.
Of course, the performance itself is an artform. It is rare, as Gyorgy notes, for piano schools to explicitly teach pupils about performance as they tend to place the emphasis on technique, not on inspiration.
And this oversight in traditional teaching methods let Gyorgy to establish the Castle Academy in 2009, which holds 10-day masterclasses for talented youth in a borough castle near Budapest.
“Part of the profession is to give your best on stage,” he says, so the Academy aims to show pupils how to do exactly that.
The program comprises masterclasses, lectures on piano technique and stage fright, evaluations of each individual’s strengths and weaknesses, audiovisual workshops on famous artists, improvisation and sound recording.
Intriguingly, Gyorgy notes his inspiration for Castle Academy was spawned from his time in Jakarta.
“I gave a masterclass in Jakarta and met a wonderful student. She was 13 years old and played Liszt beautifully. I saw her talent and the conditions she worked under, and I wondered how I could help her realize her potential,” he says.
His motivations are seemingly in line with those of his hero, Franz Liszt, who apparently believed that “genius comes with obligations”.
More importantly, Gyorgy is passionate about sharing his passion and expertise with a younger generation. “Reaching a young audience is one of the most important things because they are the future,” he says.
In addition to aiding in the improvement of others, Gyorgy is also constantly focused on improving himself.
“I really would like to find my own voice; something that is distinctly me,” he says.
“Believing in yourself can be such a long process — even to get that stage where you believe what you are doing is good,” he says.
“But whenever I’m working on new pieces or my improvisations, I am always trying to make things better — step by step.” It seems only natural that our conversation would end on a perfect cadence.
