BIOGRAPHY
"I see the pipes and the whistles not uniquely as artefacts of a specific tradition of music, but as instruments for any type of music."
Géza Frank was born in Vienna in 1987. Aged 11 he discovered his love for bagpipes and flutes. Soon after having purchased and extensively listened to numerous piping albums, he started traveling to Scotland regularly to learn the Scottish highland bagpipes, first at the Sabhal Mór Ostaig on the isle of Skye and then at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow.
After having completed his Baccalaureat and Matura at the Lycée Francais de Vienne, Géza joined the Austrian Army to complete an officers training. During this year Géza had to stop playing pipes due to an injury. After one intense year of training and subsequent promotion to the rank of Sergeant, Géza took up the pipes again and went on to become the first ever Austrian Piping Champion at both occasions of the biannual Austrian Piping Championships in Bad Goisern. In 2007 Géza was, in cooperation with Karl Wallner, the driving force behind the foundation of the Austrian Bagpipe Association, an association promoting and developing Scottish piping in Austria.
In 2008 Géza joined the BA Irish Music and Dance at the University of Limerick, where he was the second Austrian to be accepted. During his 4 years in the BA, Géza was tought by some of the most influential musicians in Irish music such as Kevin Crawford, Tiarnan O Duinnchin, Barry Kerr, Niall Keegan, Niall Vallely, Brian McNamara, Tyler Duncan, Mary Bergin, Mikie Smith, Iain MacDonald, Fraser Fifield, Jean-Michel Veillon, Karen Tweed and many more.
In 2011 Géza went on to study abroad in Cape Breton, Canada. At the Cape Breton University he took modules in Ethnomusicology, Acting and Cape Breton repertoire classes with Kyle MacNeil of the Barra MacNeils.
In 2012 Géza graduated from the BA Irish Music and Dance with honours and briefly joined the Grade 1 Pipe Band “Dysart & Dundonald” in Scotland, which made him the first and to date only Austrian to ever join a Grade 1 Band.
In 2013 Géza joined Carlos Núnez on an extended tour of Germany and Swizerland.
The same year he also played uilleann pipes and whistles for the movie soundtracks of “Braveheart”, “Titanic” and “Avatar” in the prestigious “Wiener Konzerthaus” with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra for a special “Hollywood in Vienna” gala in honour of Hollywood composer James Horner. Briefly after this very successful production, Géza was asked to join Hungarian star pianist “Havasi” for two special concerts with symphonic orchestra in the Budapest sports arena.
In September 2013 Géza became the first Austrian to join the MA Irish Traditional Music Performance at the University of Limerick. During this year long MA his main instrument was the Irish Flute, which he took up only one year previous to the start of the MA. His teachers in the MA included: Sylvain Barou, Jean-Michel Veillon, Niall Keegan, Kevin Crawford, Conal O’Grada, Brian Finnegan and many more.
After graduating with honours from the MA in Irish Traditional Music Performance in 2014, Géza started working on his and Jean Damei's duo project "EVENT HORIZON", which's aim is to create a musical fusion between several genres, all inspired by cosmology. The same year marked also the start of "FOURTH MOON", a band which has gained international critical acclaim and is releasing their first hotly anticipated album in March 2018.
In March 2019 Géza was asked to substitute in Scottish super group Mànran for their piper, 7 times All-Ireland champion Ryan Murphy.
Bands & Collaborations:
-PARSEC: 2009 - 2012
-André Rieu: 2008 / 2012
-Tunnagan: 2010 - 2011
-Carlos Nunez: 2013 / 2015
-Hollywood in Vienna: 2013 / 2017
-Havasi: 2013 / 2015
-EVENT HORIZON: 2014 -
-Limerick Piping Quartett: 2014
-Fourth Moon: 2014 -
-Titanic Live: 2016 -
-James Horner: A Life in Music: 2017 -
-Mànran: 2019
Orchestras:
-Radio-Symphonieorchester
-Tonkünstler Orchester
-The Sound of Hollywood Symphony Orchestra
-Havasi Symphonic
-Strauss Orkest
-Moscow Symphony
-St. Petersburg Symphony
-Istanbul Film Sound
-21st Century Orchestra
-Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire