Polyanskiy, Oleg

About Oleg Polyanskiy

Polyanskiy was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine and started taking private piano lessons pretty late, at the age of 13. Later he studied music in the college and then in the music university of Kharkiv with the majors in both classical and jazz piano performance, under Galina Sladkovskaya (a renowned classical teacher who moved to Kharkiv from Saint-Petersburg and later settled down in Germany) and the leading jazz pianist in Kharkiv Sergei Davydov. After Oleg’s graduation with master’s degree and distinctions, he worked in a music university and went on to win awards in several international competitions and festivals. One of them was “DoJ” (Donetsk Jazz, 2001) - the first international jazz competition in post-Soviet space (Donetsk, Ukraine), where Oleg’s jazz-fusion band Jungle Snow received the 3rd Prize and Oleg had also gotten the Special Prize of Jury as a pianist.

Later on, Polyanskiy has performed around the world in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, France, Denmark, Turkey, USA, Qatar, UAE, Thailand, China, and has had the privilege of sharing the stage with many renowned musicians such as Ray Coussins (Frank Sinatra’s former pianist); Tempei Nakamura (acclaimed Japanese pianist-composer); leading Ukrainian progressive rock bands Sunchild and Karfagen; Ray Brown Jr. (the famous jazz vocalist, son of Ray Brown and Ella Fitzgerald); trumpeter Dominick Farinacci; and Qatar-based multi-national bands such as Doha Jazz and The Awakenings Ensemble. He also recorded albums with the latter 2 bands. From 2012 to 2015 Oleg taught at piano faculty of Qatar Music Academy (Doha, Qatar).