Robi Botos
2016 TMA149 Musician of the Year Award Recipient
By Les Allt
Robi Botos is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, and educator who has quickly joined the ranks of the world’s elite jazz musicians. Mentored by the great Oscar Peterson, Robi has received numerous awards and accolades throughout his career, including a 2007 National Jazz Award for “Keyboardist of the Year”, 2007 NOW Award for “Best Jazz Artist,” and First Place Prizes at the 2008 Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition and 2008 Great American Jazz Piano Competition.
Born into a musical family in Nyíregyháza, Hungary, Robi was mainly self-taught and began his musical career when he was just a child growing up in Budapest, playing drums and percussion with his father and two brothers. It was at age seven that Robi first took up the piano, the instrument he has since mastered and with which he has made his mark.
Some notable performances include opening for Oscar Peterson at the Stravinsky hall in Montreux, headlining the Long Beach convention and entertainment centre, and opening for Bela Fleck at the 2005 TD Toronto Jazz Festival main stage. He returned to the TD Jazz Festival Main stage in 2011 to release his debut album as leader, Place to Place. In 2012, Robi was commissioned to transcribe and record Bill Evans’s BBC performance of “My Foolish Heart” for the score of Arbitrage, starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon. He also composed music for the award-winning documentary, A People Uncounted: The Untold Story of The Roma. More recently, Robi scored and performed for the feature movie Jean of the Joneses.
Since immigrating to Canada in 1998, Robi has recorded and performed with many local and international greats including Chaka Khan, Lisa Fischer, Al Jarreau, Michael Brecker, Charlie Watts, Pat LaBarbera, Branford Marsalis, Richard Bona, Marcus Belgrave, Steve Gadd, Terri Lyne Carrington, Vernon Reid, Darryl Jones, Tim Ries, Peter Appleyard, Molly Johnson, Vinnie Colaiuta, Dave Young, Dennis Coffey, James Blood Ulmer, Joey DeFrancesco, Toots Thielemans, Guido Basso, and Avishai Cohen.
Robi loves that living in Toronto presents so many opportunities to make a life in music. He feels fortunate to be able to make his living solely from the music business, which for him includes playing live, working in the studios, doing film and TV scores, and teaching at Humber College. He’s happy to have met many new colleagues and friends, and admires those who can perform in other genres as well as jazz. He feels strongly that a solid education in music is necessary for a successful and long career.
Robi has been nominated for five JUNO awards over the years, and last year saw his second win (first as leader), for Jazz Album of the Year (Solo). He also won the 2016 SOCAN Hagood Hardy Award for jazz composition.
A longtime member of the TMA, he says it’s nice to know that there’s an organization behind us, protecting our interests. We salute Robi as our 2016 Musician of the Year.
