Biography

I was born in 1964 in Budapest. My parents were teachers, both of them taught singing and led a choir. I started to study solfege in 1972 and piano in 1973. Although I had great, tolerant teachers, as I grew up I became more and more distant from the so-called "classical music" and was more attracted by rock music.

In 1978 I was admitted to the Madách Imre Gimnázium's (high school in Budapest) literature and drama class. At the age of 15 I stopped playing the piano and "switched" to guitar. In 1981 I heard Emerson, Lake and Palmer and King Crimson for the first time, I was introduced to the music of Frank Zappa, and I was very influenced by Beethoven's Choral fantasy and many of Bartók's works. As a result, I decided to study not jazz at the Conservatoire, but classical music and composition. In 1982, Kocsár Miklós accepted me into his class on the basis of my piano piece "Black Mood". After the graduation exam at Madách in 1982, I successfully entered the ELTE Teacher Training College for history and Hungarian language.

In 1982–83 I did my military service in Szombathely.

From autumn 1983 I started a double life. In the mornings I attended teacher training classes, in the afternoons I attended music classes at the Conservatory, and I also founded and played in other bands. In 1985, I also became a musician at the Tanulmány Theatre (an independent theatre in Budapest), for whom I composed my first full-length theatre score. After a while, however, it became clear that it was impossible to do so many things in parallel, and I decided to concentrate on music. After two and a half years, I left the ELTE Teacher Training College in 1986. However, I continued my studies in composition at the Conservatory of Music, which I successfully completed in 1987 with Professor Kocsár.

In November 1986, together with cellist Pejtsik Péter and flutist Egervári Gábor, we founded the After Crying ensemble. Our aim was to create "modern but accessible" contemporary music. For a year we listened only to works by dodecaphonic and avant-garde composers, from Schönberg through Stockhausen and Ligeti to Pierre Boulez and Xenakis. It was our common realisation that this was not our way. We found the seeds of modern music that was authentic for us in Emerson, Lake and Palmer, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Laurie Anderson. We have consistently sought our own way in the spirit of these, trying, experimenting, arguing and often coming up with strange solutions. We gave our first concert in the spring of 1987. At that time I supported myself by cleaning and odd jobs.

In 1987–88 I studied jazz piano for a year with Binder Károly: that year made a huge difference to my professional development.

In the spring of 1988, we toured Portugal and England with the Tanulmány Theatre production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and also gave solo concerts in Porto and Leicester. In the autumn of the same year we performed in Israel and West Berlin. From 1989 onwards we performed regularly in Budapest, while our programme and membership underwent several major changes. In 1990 we released our first full-length album, Overground Music.

In the summer of 1990, I spent a longer time with Varga László, the parish priest of Somogysámson, who converted me, and since then I have been a practicing Catholic. Father Laci is now the Bishop of the Diocese of Kaposvár.

I have been a "full-time musician" since 1991.

In 1992, I enrolled in the catholic cantor training school of the Diocese of Vác, which I completed in 1996 with a diploma.

In 1994, for professional and personal reasons, I left the band After Crying, and from then until 2010 I worked as a performer (pianist, singer) and later as a composer and church organist.

In 1995 I married violinist Júlia Gyermán. We had four children, Péter (1996), Anna Flóra (1997), Laura (2000) and Luca Zsófia (2002).

In 1995, I founded the band Townscream. The band existed—with more or less interruptions—until April 1999. Eventually, due to lack of rehearsal space and concert opportunities, the ensemble ceased its activities, but the CD Nagyvárosi ikonok, released in 1997, bears witness to our work.

I was the organist of the Peter-Paul church in Szentendre until 1998-99. It was in this church that we gave our first "Dance of Spirit" concert together with Gyermán Júlia, which is basically a series of organ-violin pieces; the collaboration continues to this day.

In 1999 our family moved to Pécs, where I started to release my solo albums.

In August 2002 we moved back to Szentendre. Until 2010—until my illness—I worked as assistant organist in the Peter-Paul church, and I also composed a number of theatre pieces.

From January 2003 I started a series of performances at the RS9 Theatre, which explored the nature of popular music. I later continued the series with the title "20th century masterpieces".

In November 2004, I organised a string quartet under the name Kairosz, with which we performed as Vedres Csaba and the Kairosz quartet until 2010. Kairosz played in a classical piano quintet formation and released two CDs.

From February 2005 to December 2011 I was invited to give courses on popular music at the Department of Aesthetics and Philology of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Pécs.

In 2006 I wrote a book "Mi az, hogy könnyűzene?!" (What is popular music?!), published by the Hungarian publisher Kairosz.

In the same year, we started to make music together with the Villő vocal ensemble, with whom we performed in Rome after making a joint album.

In 2006–2007, we gave free university lectures in Kaposvár and Marcali together with Dr. Kellermayer Miklós, Dr. Csókay András and Dr. Heidl György.

I met Lovasi András for the first time in October 2007. After participating in the backing band of the Lovasi-Lackfi production, I first performed with Kiscsillag (Lovasi's orchestra) acoustic in 2011, I also performed regularly with the rock formation from 2012-13, and with the symphonic and acoustic group from autumn 2014 until 2017.

With Gyermán Júlia, we continued our organ-violin concert series "Dance of Spirit". We gave six concerts in Rome, where the sights and the atmosphere not only impressed me as a tourist, but also marked a turning point in my life as a believer and musician. We have performed in several other cities in Italy, as well as in Barcelona, Gouveia in Portugal, and, also in numerous small and large towns in Hungary.

Between 2007 and 2010 I continued teaching at the University of Pécs, composed theatre music, performed regularly as a soloist and with Kairosz, and released two CDs: Pszichogrammák is an imprint of my artistic and human relationship with Gyimóthy Gábor painter, and Notes from silence, a selection of my recent work, including several previously unreleased pieces.

In the summer of 2009, I began composing my largest work to date, "Miserere", for baritone soloist, children's choir, mixed choir and string orchestra, in the parish of Dunabogdány. I completed the piece in 2016 after several interruptions and revisions.

In February 2010, I had a panic attack. I think it is important to write about this because it has had a significant impact on the rest of my life. From then on—apart from the Japanese tour—I did not (and still do not) give solo concerts anywhere, in any form, and the focus shifted definitively to composing. The illness—after professional treatment, thank God and my doctors—spared me the vocation of church organist.

In 2011 I wrote a textbook on the history of popular music for the "Key to Music" series.

I spent six weeks in Japan in March and April 2012, during which I gave 16 concerts, some solo and some with violinist Takashi Ieda. The series of concerts was organised in memory of the Fukushima tsunami tragedy a year earlier. I visited the largest cities in Japan and all four major islands. This trip was one of the greatest and most amazing experiences of my life.

The two years or so that followed were mainly devoted to Kiscsillag, but in 2013 I also composed organ and chamber music as well as choral works, in addition to a busy concert schedule.

In 2014 Gyermán Júlia and I parted ways and moved to Budapest with my son Péter. The artistic relationship with Júlia and the close family relationship with my daughters has of course been maintained. In the same year, we started a joint concert with Heinczinger Mika entitled "Timeline". Unfortunately we rarely get to play together, but the relationship is still active today.

In 2015, I mainly made symphonic orchestral transcriptions, first for the songs of the Pál utcai fiúk rock band, and then for almost the whole year for Kiss Ferenc's cycle Holdudvarház.

In 2016 I finalised Miserere, which was premiered in September at the Kodály Centre in Pécs. From autumn of the same year I was assistant organist at the Church of the Hungarian Saints until the autumn 2019.

In 2017, I prepared mixed choir accompaniments and transcriptions for the 20th anniversary concert and double album of the Misztrál ensemble.

In September, I was asked by father Fábry Kornél to do the music engraving and related works for the choirbook of the International Eucharistic Congress. My work, under the supervision of Professor Sapszon Ferenc, lasted until May 2021.

In 2018, I wrote my work "St. Bernadette mass" for alto soloist, mixed choir and symphony orchestra, which was premiered in the Peter-Paul church in Szentendre in May 2019.

In the summer of 2019, the CD Crossover was released with my piano cycle written in the previous years. Since autumn of the same year, I have been regularly composing incidental and applied music for MÁV-HÉV Zrt., a Hungarian suburban railway company.

In November of the same year I moved to Kaposvár, where I have been living ever since.

Since September 2021 I have been the organist of the church of Donner in Kaposvár. In this year I started writing my symphony "Troubled world", which I am still working on.

In May 2022 I married Nardai Veronika teacher, in the church of Donner. During the year, I have composed more than 30 moments musicaux and impromptus for piano.

In the autumn of 2023, I wrote my cycle "24 Rock Etudes for Solo Cello". At the same time, my cycle "Autumn Blue"—which includes 12 piano improvisations—, as well as a re-recorded and remixed version of my piano cycle "Tales of a Dark Room 2023" were released in digital format.

www.vedrescsaba.hu