Viktor Magyaróvári (born 12 May 1985,

Mezőhegyes Mezőhegyes is a town in Békés county, in the Southern Great Plain region of south-east Hungary. It is home to the Hungarian State Stud ( hu, italic=no, Mezőhegyesi Állami Ménes), founded in 1784 and famous for its Nonius, Furioso-North Sta ...

), known by his stage name Kayamar, is a Hungarian singer, jazz and classical composer. He has abilities in the areas of hearing (

Hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that o ...

-pitch that is even more precise than absolute pitch),

vocal range Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of st ...

(it is proven that he has more than 5 octaves from Ab0-C6 being one of the lowest basses in the world) and improvisation. Kayamar gained recognition from the media in 2011 when he won the 1st prize in the

T-mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...

's composers' competition. His stage name is derived from the anagram of his birth name (''Kayamar Vorti Virgo'' in the full form) that is also his name in his

Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works '' The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawl ...

-like self-invented language, the ''kamirami''. This language has grammar and concrete vocabulary, Kayamar is able to compose and speak in it. He composes and sing in the genre of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, classical and pop either.

Early life

Viktor Magyaróvári was born in

Gyula, Hungary Gyula (; german: Jula; ro, Jula or ) is a town in Békés County, Hungary. The town is best known for its Medieval castle and a thermal bath. Ferenc Erkel, the composer of the Hungarian national anthem, and Albrecht Dürer the Elder, the f ...

, but spent his childhood in a small country town, called

. His talent has revealed soon and after a few years of special private lessons of solfege and

harmonization In music, harmonization is the chordal accompaniment to a line or melody: "Using chords and melodies together, making harmony by stacking scale tones as triads". A harmonized scale can be created by using each note of a musical scale as a root ...

the

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

, Gábor Eckhardt invited him to th
Béla Bartók Conservatory of Music
His parents followed him and he moved to

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

with his family soon, at the age of 13. His first professor was Gábor Ugrin who taught him conducting. After the

voice break Voice break generally refers to transitions between different vocal registers of the human voice. Although singing is mostly done using the modal register, it is important for more professional singers to be able to smoothly move between different ...

it revealed soon that his vocal chords are able to resonate in an extremely wide spectrum while his voice does not lose its flexibility. Although he studied classical (

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

) singing for a long time, it took him more than 10 years of autodidact practising to have the total control over his capabilities. After the Conservatory he won admission to the

Franz Liszt Academy of Music The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music ( hu, Liszt Ferenc Zeneművészeti Egyetem, often abbreviated as ''Zeneakadémia'', "Liszt Academy") is a music university and a concert hall in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875. It is home to the ...

where he studied conducting. He never participated in official composition classes.

Career

Getting on the spotlight

Kayamar signed his

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tr ...

with his future manager, László Ágoston in 2011 and published his first YouTube video of a medley of his own compositions soon after. Among classical musicians this became popular fast, but they got real media attention after Kayamar's first Guinness World Record attempt on singing the lowest bass line ever. He won the 1st prize in T-mobile's composers' competition and started to perform on stage soon. The only disadvantage of this hype was that Kayamar became famous as the lowest bass of Hungary while he wanted to be successful mainly as a composer and jazz singer.

Finding his place

Kayamar was invited to perform in places like the Palace of Arts or the music festival, the Sziget. He published his first CD with his own compositions on the lyrics of the Dutch singer-songwriter Robert Keder in December, 2012. He performs alone but also with the Moltopera Company, Renáta Göncz and his a cappella group, the Windsingers.

The Hertz-pitch

Kayamar has a so-called ''logarithmic'' or ''

-pitch'' better than the absolute pitch that is widely considered to be the highest level of musical hearing. He is able not just to identify and re-create musical notes without using a reference but he can tell how many

he hears or sings. This way Kayamar is able to use much smaller intervals than quarter tones.

"The Hungarian Bobby McFerrin"

Kayamar's real speciality is the ''multitrack improvisation'' - he composes ''real time'' in multiple parts. He has composed choral works live or cooperated with guest singers but is also able to use his own voice with an instrument called

looper pedal In music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections can be repeated to create ostinato patterns. Longer sections can also be repeated: for example, a player might loop what they play on an entire verse of a song in order to ...

. He records and plays back the parts of a vocal or choir and improvises over it. For this unique technique he is many times compared to the American

a cappella vocalist and conductor

Bobby McFerrin Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American folk and jazz singer. He is known for his vocal techniques, such as singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rap ...

Albums published

Music from the wind (2012 demo-album) # The Wind Song # Dark Desert # Underground # Shadow Rose # The Great Escape # Tears Endrolet # The Raining Days # Come Again # Going Places # Silence # Lines # Via Dies Irae – Haragom napja # The Spider Web # Nature Waves # Wind Song Reprise

Sources

Website (in Hungarian)

Kayamar interview on Origo.hu

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kayamar 1986 births Living people 21st-century Hungarian male singers People from Békés County