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Musician Bios
Katalin Harsáczki (“Kata”)
vocals
Kata was born in Eger, Hungary and moved to the United States five years ago. She grew up surrounded by music; her mother had been a big fan of Hungarian folk music and encouraged her daughter to find interest in the culture of her ancestors. Kata discovered Hungarian folkdance and authentic folk music at the age of 16 and, two years later, began her singing career. She joined folkdance groups and began singing at concerts and performances with vocal and instrumental groups like the Gajdos Ensemble and Maria Maczkó, successfully taking part in various singing competitions. Later she met Pál Dsupin, a professional artist, bagpiper and instrument maker and worked together with him on musical projects. In 1999, they appeared as part of the Táncháztalálkozó (Hungarian Folkdance Gathering) recording series which compiles recordings of the winners of the yearly Táncház festival, showcasing some of the best folk music from Eastern Europe. Shortly after her arrival to New Jersey, Kata was scooped up by Életfa and has been the group’s lead vocalist ever since.
Ildikó Hajdu-Németh (“Ildi”)
violin, vocals
Ildi began playing classical violin at the age of seven. After three years of studying under the Suzuki method, she was accepted to Manhattan School of Music’s Preparatory Division where she studied with the world-renowned Stanley Bednar for nine years. She was awarded a performing scholarship at Duquesne University Tamburitzans in Pittsburgh, PA, which gave her the opportunity to perform Eastern and Central European dances and music while touring the United States and Canada for four years. Ildi received a B.S. in Pre-Med Biology from Duquesne University. In parallel with her years of musical training, Ildi studied Hungarian folk music in both Hungary and America, participating in scores of folk music and dance camps starting in her teenage years. She is the musical director of the Csurdongolo Folk Dance Group and the Hungarian American Athletic Club (HAAC) Folk Dance Ensemble. Through the years she has performed at Symphony Space (Manhattan), Budapest Spring Festival, and Heinz Hall (Pittsburgh), and appeared live on WQXR
(96.3 FM). This past year she performed with the New York Philharmonic in a presentation of 'The life of Brahms' and presented a concert series on Hungarian music at the Disney Music Hall in Los Angeles, California. Ildi is a graduate of Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest and is 'on sabaticle' from her pharmaceutical clinical research career as a stay-at-home mom and violin teacher. This year she started 'Magyar Violin School' for children, based on the Suzuki Method. She resides in Somerset, NJ with her husband, László Hajdu-Németh, and her three children.
László Hajdu-Németh (“Laci”)
kontra (3-string viola)
Like many Hungarians born in the United States, Laci’s Hungarian cultural upbringing is rooted in the Hungarian Scouts’ Movement; Laci first began to dance with the Scouts’ dance troupe as a child. He studied folkdance from masters such as Zoltán Zsuráfszky and Szilárd Szabó. Laci is now the Director of the Csűrdöngölő Folk Dance Ensemble of New Brunswick, one of the leading Hungarian folkdance groups on the east coast of the United States, and remains an active participant in the Scouts’ movement. Several years ago, Laci joined Életfa and began delving into Hungarian music; he plays the kontra (three-stringed viola) with the group. He has performed at venues such as the New Jersey State Theater in New Brunswick and The Quay in Sarasota. Laci is a vice president at Morgan Stanley in New York City and lives in Somerset, NJ with his wife, Életfa violinist Ildikó Hajdu-Németh and their three children.
József Gartai (“Heki”)
cimbalom and kontra (3-string viola)
Heki was born in Hungary and had heard Hungarian folk music while growing up but was not quite impressed by it until he attended a Táncház (Hungarian dance party). He happily tackled the challenge of learning the kontra, enrolling at a folk music program in Budapest in the early 1980’s. Heki accompanied several dance groups in Hungary and toured throughout Europe. In the meantime, he worked in the field of geology and studied Tibetan language and eastern philosophy. He came to America in the early 1990's, discovered a community of American-Hungarians who shared his passion in Hungarian folk music and dance, and joined Életfa. He now lives in Princeton, New Jersey and is working diligently on mastering his skills on the cimbalom, a relative of the hammered dulcimer.
Raul Rothblatt (“Raci”)
3-string bass, string cello, percussive cello
Raul is an active composer, performer, arts manager and partner of Jumbie Records. He was born in San Francisco and first gained a taste of Hungarian culture through his grandmother, author of Flavors of Hungary, and his mother, who were Holocaust survivors from Budapest. His early musical education included membership in the San Francisco Boys Chorus, where he had the honor of sharing the opera stage with artists like Luciano Pavarotti. He graduated from University of California at Berkeley, majoring in both Music and Political Science, and studied classical composition at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest before completing a Master's Degree in Musical Theater Composition at New York University. As a composer, performer and music director, Raul has brought his knowledge of Hungarian folk to the greater New York arts community. As a bandleader, he combines Hungarian folk with West African classical music in his band Dallam-Doug ou. In 2003, he co-founded Jumbie Records which promotes innovative/traditional music from West Africa, Hungary and beyond.
Attila Papp (“Acsi”)
3-string bass, percussive cello
Before becoming a founding member of Életfa, Attila was a member, lead dancer and assistant dance instructor for over 15 years in the Hungária Folk Dance Ensemble, one of the country's pioneering dance ensembles helping to bring Hungary's village dances and songs "home" to America. With performances spanning the Eastern seaboard and a gala appearance in Budapest for the World Festival, Hungária became one of the most recognized presenters of Hungarian Folklore in North America. With a background playing the keyboards from the age of five, Attila eventually served until recently as the Organist for the Hungarian Reformed Church of Passaic, one of New Jersey's oldest Hungarian congregations. He is a graduate of Rutgers University with degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and Music from the Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 1994, Attila founded and still runs Conductus, a nationwide Executive Search firm in Hawthorne, New Jersey. A veteran of Hungarian folk dance and music, Attila has studied numerous dance and music dialects from the most outstanding artists in the field, both in Hungary and here in the United States, and met his wife Cynthia, herself a lifetime folkdance enthusiast from Montreal, through the Hungarian folklore movement. They now reside in Hawthorne with their daughters Timea and Olivia.
Áron Székely
Viola
Folk music and dance run in the family for Aron whose parents were leading characters of the folk revival movement of the 1970s and 1980s. It is no wonder that besides grinding away at his trusty viola - affectionately nicknamed "Pitbull" - Aron has also eroded the soles of many boots and shoes as a dancer, dance teacher, and choreographer all over the East Coast.
His musical training started in his early teens with the guitar, but after eight years, Aron decided to turn his attention to the heritage that his family had been cultivating. Since then, he has been devoting himself to the art of Hungarian folk music and dance (the two inexorably linked), learning from the most authentic recordings and the still surviving representatives of the wonderful musical and dance culture of the Carpathian Basin.
Aron believes that studying music and dance is a lifelong search that enables us to overcome the isolation brought on by our ever-accelerating pace of life and our desensitization to information and human interactions.
Kalman Magyar (“Öcsi”)
violin, viola, trumpet-violin, various folk instruments
A founding member of the band, multi-instrumentalist Kalman (“Öcsi”) Magyar is regarded as one of the top purveyors of Eastern/Central European folk music in North America. After completing his classical and jazz training at Manhattan School of Music's Preparatory Division and honing his folk music skills with his idols - village musicians tucked away in the depths of Transylvania and the streets of Budapest - Kalman went on to tour the continent with the renowned Tamburitzans of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, one of the leading Eastern European performing troupes in the world. He subsequently graduated from Brooklyn Law School and passed the New Jersey and New York State Bar Examinations. He maintains a busy performing and recording schedule with several groups in the New York area and Canada. He now lives in Toronto, Canada. Kalman’s website is at www.kalmanmagyar.com.
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