Roman Stolyar was born on December 6, 1967 in Novosibirsk, Russia, in the family of engineers and got his first musical experiences at state music school. Then, being a student of Novosibirsk Institute of Electrical Engineering, he made his first steps to studying jazz - first privately, then, after his decision to leave the career of engineer, at Novosibirsk musical college where he entered in 1989. His teacher was Igor Dmitriyev, the most famous Siberian traditional jazz pianist and educator. During studying jazz at the college Roman chose the way of contemporary and free jazz enriched by elements of classical composing and folk roots. His first project - a duo together with excellent drummer Mikhail Wolfovitch - was formed in 1990 and made its first concert in Novokuznetsk on the annual Jazz Piano Festival. After Andrey Turygin, alto saxophone player, joined them, they started to perform as STS trio. Soon their group was invited to join the ALOHA project according to USSR - USA intercultural program, and they spent two weeks in Hawaii in January 1991. Soon he entered Novosibirsk State Conservatoire in September 1991 where he studied classical and contemporary composition and electronic music with Prof. Youry Yukechev, outstanding composer experienced both in classical and jazz music.
After graduating from Conservatoire he continued his career as a jazz pianist playing in different collectives (including ALTER EGO, the jazz duo together with Andrey Turygin, and NEW GENERATION leaded by brilliant tenor saxophonist Vladimir Timofeyev) and, besides, he created a number of compositions in modern "classical" manner but with elements of free improvisation. His music became soon known thanks to his collaboration with Pavel Sharomov vocal ensemble that commissioned him electroacoustic Missa Apokriph, three cantatas and a large stuff of arrangements for them. He also made some works for theatres (including two musicals for children theater "Smile") and, ultimately, was invited as a musical director to Novosibirsk Academic Theater "Globe" in September 2000. As an educator he works at the jazz department of Novosibirsk College of Music where he has developed his own training course "Theoretical Foundations of Jazz Improvisation". His methods of training on free improvisation are described in his book "Modern Improvisation: Training Course for Piano". His improvisational workshops he has made in numerous educational institutions of Russia and abroad - in the University of Michigan, Californian Institute of the Arts, Mannes College in New York, School of Music of Pays-d'Enhaut in Chateau d'Oex (Switzerland), Conservatory of Versallis (France), Frescobaldi Conservatory in Ferrara (Italy), Kazakhstan National Conservatory, and Moldavian State Concervatory - have made him international reputation of active propagandist of the art of music improvisation.
Being active in searching for new talents and fresh ideas, Roman Stolyar has created number of ensembles with participation of young talented musicians – such as his collaboration with jazz vocalist Victoria Chekovaya and progressive rock duo SHANTI with singer Yelena Silantieva. The current projects started by him are free improvisational trio DOTS & LINES (in collaboration with saxophonist Ilia Belorukov and guitarist Andrey Popovskiy) and duo with saxophonist from Saint Petersburg Lenny Sendersky.
As a piano improviser, Roman Stolyar has participated in many festivals, conferences and concerts of jazz, improvisation and contemporary music in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, UK, and USA. He has collaborated with many outstanding musicians, including Dominic Duval, William Parker, Marco Eneidi, Stephen Nahmanovitch,Susan Allen, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Vinny Golia, Blaise Siwula, Ed Sarath, Thomas Buckner (USA), Kadzutoku Umezu, Ken-ichi Matsumoto (Japan), Assif Tsahar (Israel), Glen Hall (Canada), Sergey Letov, Alexey Kruglov,Vlad Makarov, Vladimir Chekasin, Second Approach Trio(Russia), Anatoly Vapirov (Bulgaria), Youry Kuznetsov (Ukraine), Carl Bergstroem-Nielsen (Denmark), Anar Tagi-zade (Azerbaijan), Hans Schuettler, Heinz-Erich Goedecke, Ge-Suk Yeo, Michaela Steinhauer (Germany), Peni Candra Rini (Indonesia),Latif Bolat (Turkey), free jazz groups Kieloor Entartet and Day & Taxi (Switzerland), Tomazs Ondruszek, Duo Havlovi (Czech Republic), folk band Lot Lorien (Bulgaria), jazz group Cohen family (Israel), Martin Kuchen trio (Sweden) and others. He has released CDs on the labels of Cadence Jazz Records (USA), Ermatell Records (Novosibirsk), Electroshock Records (Moscow) , SoLyd (Moscow), NewFolder2 (St. Petersburg), Ayler Records (Sweden), and Intuitive Records (Denmark).
In 1992 -2000 Roman Stolyar has cooperated with annual Summer School of Contemporary Dance as an accompanist in class of modern dance. He has collaborated with numerous modern dance teachers & choreographers such as Nelson Fernandes, Christin Carter, Marina Collard (UK), Colin Connor (USA), Randall Scott (Holland), Torbjorn Sternberg (Sweden) and others.
