Jazzation
About Us
Jazzation consists of five unique musicians. Internationally recognised bass singer Máté Homor originally specialised in sacral music and has a background in world-renowned Hungarian choral singing. Katus Várallyay brings the world music theme to the group, Sára Bolyki pairs jazz singing with folk music mastery. Gina Kanizsa is both jazz singer and vocal coach, and Barnabás Bolyki as the youngest member of the ensemble has just finished his jazz studies at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.

Meet the members

Katus Várallyay // Soprano
Mother of two and of Jazzation, Katus completed studies in folk music, and had her degree in Hungarian language and literature and drama based pedagogy. The middle of seven offspring almost all of her siblings and cousins are noted Hungarian musicians. Her childhood role model was her aunt Judit Andrejszki, a singer, and Julie Andrews, and at the age of four she could watch The Sound of Music several times a day. She sang in a choir, and in a world music formation. She conceived the idea of founding Jazzation at the age of just nineteen, and her dream has come true assuming the form of Hungary’s number one jazz a cappella band.

Sára Bolyki // Mezzo-soprano
Sári is a second generation a cappellist, daughter of the oldest member of Bolyki Brothers. She has been with the group since 2015, and her guest performance helped Jazzation win the grand prix and the audience prize at the Leipzig International A cappella Competition. After that, on our Taiwan tour she already officially took the stage as member of the group, right in front of an audience of 25000 at the Taichung Jazz Festival. In 2019 she graduated the folk singing faculty of Liszt Ferenc Music Academy with honours with an invitation to stay as a teacher even before her graduation. Besides her responsibilities in Jazzation she teaches at music school as well, and is regularly invited as soloist with Hungarian and Balkan folk music formations.

Gina Kanizsa // Alto
Gina is a committed representative of mainstream jazz even outside the group, and is a fervent contributor to concert life in Budapest. She obtained her jazz singing teacher honours degree from Liszt Ferenc Music Academy, and wrote her thesis on the methodology of experience pedagogy of singing in a community. Her hobby is the achievement of Jazzation’s visual harmony in the form of: she approves our stage outfits. In 2017 she helped us as soloist reach the final in the Hungarian program of the Eurovision song contest singing Fall Like Rain whose original a cappella version thus became Jazzation’s most viewed video.

Barnabás Bolyki // Tenor
Barnabás joined the ensemble in the summer of 2022, and it is not enough that he is Sára's younger brother, but by the time it was discussed that he would be a member of Jazzation, he had already completed his jazz studies at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Music, and had just been admitted to the Liszt Ferenc University of Music for his jazz studies. His dedication to jazz and his singing career is at least as great as his hard work and persistence, thanks to which he learned a whole concert repertoire in a few weeks - as perfectly if he had always sung with us.

Máté Homor // Bass
Máté, also a founding member, is the cantor of the lead parish of Pestszenterzsébet and the father of three lovely kids. His favourite composer is Bach whose works he frequently played and sang during his education. He attended Kodály Zoltán Hungarian Choir School for eleven years winning numerous awards worldwide singing in the school’s choirs during his childhood. He completed church music studies to add to his degree in child music education and chorus mastership. Although jazz singing was his secret dream for years, today he is widely recognized in the a cappella world for his accuracy, jazz bass-like tone and his sense of swing, which he can dance exquisitely anyway.

István Rácz // Sound Engineer
Isti was unsuspectingly listening to one of our concerts in September 2017 in the audience clueless that not long after the concert he would find himself in the role of our group’s sound engineer. During the time since passed he has refined into an a cappella sound expert actively contributing to Jazzation’s sense of comfort on stage from microphone selection to personal monitoring. His accuracy, and maximalism as an engineer is compounded by high artistic standards and an inclination for experimentation, while his balanced personality works an effect just as beneficial on our group dynamics as on our sounding. He is a lover of travelling, and water.