Biography

Guitarist, composer and improviser Adam Czitrom is a versatile and sought-after voice in creative music circles, having performed and toured with a wide range of Budapest-based bands, artists, theater companies and contemporary dance collectives. With an eclectic output ranging from avant-jazz to noise rock, free improvisation and electronic music, he is constantly seeking diversity and experimentation, while maintaining a personal and idiosyncratic approach to his playing and writing.

Growing up in Israel as the child of Eastern European immigrants and later moving to Budapest, Hungary, his cosmopolitan disposition has led him to reflect extensively on the question of identity on both a personal and artistic level. As a child of the 90s, he was exposed to the rock music of the time at an early age and soon found himself spending large chunks of his afternoons at a local record store. After playing trombone in his school orchestra for two years, he picked up the guitar at the age of 12 and was soon playing along to whatever records he could lay his hands on - from Radiohead and The Beatles to Nirvana and Israeli artists such as Berry Sakharoff - and channeling all these influences into his first bedroom recordings. His exploration of jazz began when one of his teachers introduced him to the music of Charlie Parker. He soon began to delve deeper into the idiom through the records of John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Charles Mingus. Meanwhile, Budapest's underground scene was making its own inspirational contributions, with Nick Cave, Talking Heads, This Heat and local underground bands Balaton and Európa Kiadó blasting through the speakers of the city's ad hoc communal spaces. His flair for underground genres is evident in his collaboration with composer Benedek Darvas, with whom he released the pastiche album Láttalak, Hallottalak, Elkövetlek in 2018. Considered by many to be an exceptionally ambitious and exuberant undertaking, the album features 12 original compositions by the duo written in the respective styles of 12 iconic bands from the golden era of the Hungarian underground.

Driven by a desire for more exploratory forms, he soon joined the free improvisation/ avant-jazz scene, where he is currently active.
His solo work often released under the pseudonym Templedrake is characterized by the utilization of extended techniques, and seeks to establish a balance between non-idiomatic sound-oriented exploration of the instrument and more traditional compositional practices. He is a member of the alternative rock group Jazzékiel, the improvisational doom-noise collective Csicskakoporsó, and the devotional avant-jazz ensemble Qiyan. His catalog also includes collaborations with folk-rock group Mordái, duo projects with drummer Áron Porteleki, guitarist Ádám Mészáros, art-folk singer Musica Moralia, electronic musicians Bálint Bolcsó and Márton Csernovszky (aka ooo). As a composer, he has been actively writing and producing film scores (e.g. Cicaverzum, 2023) and original music for theater and contemporary dance productions. Alongside his involvement in music, he holds a degree in English and American Studies, with literature and language remaining a central interest and source of inspiration.

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