Kalman Magyar is an acclaimed musician, international lawyer, and one of the leading figures of Hungarian folk culture living in North America, working to preserve and build upon traditions for future generations.
MUSICAL TRAINING
Kalman was born in 1973 in New Jersey to Hungarian immigrant parents (Kalman and Judit) who were active in preserving Hungarian heritage throughout North America. At age five, he began learning violin through the Suzuki method and studied for a decade under Stanley Bednar at the Manhattan School of Music’s Preparatory Division, where he also studied piano and viola, and engaged intensively with jazz, composition, and music theory.
From an early age, Kalman took part in folk music and dance camps and seminars in both the United States and Hungary. His early musical masters included the legendary Transylvanian violinist Sándor “Neti” Fodor and Béla Halmos, one of the “godfathers” of the Hungarian dance-house and folk music revival movement. He studied folk dance with, among others, Sándor Timár and Zoltán Zsuráfszky.
PERFORMING EXPERIENCE
In 1987, Kalman co-founded the Életfa Hungarian Folk Music Band, one of the most treasured Hungarian folk ensembles in the United States and the continent’s first band specializing in authentic Táncház (village dance music) repertoire.
In 1991, he received a full scholarship to Duquesne University in Pittsburgh to perform with the Tamburitzans, America’s premier Eastern European music and dance ensemble, which showcases the folk traditions of Balkan, Hungarian, Romanian, Slavic, and other cultures. He toured nationally for four years while completing his Bachelor of Science degree (cum laude) at Duquesne’s School of Business.
Since 2007, Kalman has primarily performed with the Canada-based Gyanta Ensemble, North America’s preeminent Hungarian folk band. The band’s members have been honored by the Ambassador of Hungary to Canada as representing “an invaluable asset in Canadian cultural life not only as performers, but also as faithful guardians and transmitters of the traditions of the Carpathian Basin.”
Kalman has performed at venues such as the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), Epcot Center (Orlando, Florida), B.B. King’s Blues Club (New York), Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), Joe’s Pub (New York), the Fiddler’s Elbow (London, U.K.), the Knitting Factory (New York), the Rio Hotel & Casino (Las Vegas), Fonó Music Hall (Budapest), Place-des-Arts (Montréal), the Bitter End (New York), the New Jersey State Theater, Drom Taberna (Toronto), Tonic (New York), HotHouse (Chicago), the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Trumpets Jazz Club (Montclair, New Jersey), Liberty State Park and the Statue of Liberty, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (Nashville), the Living Arts Centre (Mississauga), Darke Hall (Regina), Town Hall (New York), the Manitoba Theatre for Young People (Winnipeg), Heinz & Benedum Halls (Pittsburgh), the World Trade Center (New York), Old Mill (Toronto), the Henry Ford Museum (Detroit), the Starry Plough Pub (Berkeley), and—at age 14—on Broadway in the Christmas Revels production (Symphony Space).
Kalman has also been a featured guest musician at many prestigious festivals, including the Mondial Des Cultures (Drummondville, Québec), the St. Ceciliatide International Music Festival (London, U.K.), DjangoFest Chicago, the Clearwater Revival Festival (New York), the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Washington, D.C.), Folklorama (Winnipeg), the South American Hungarian Folk Dance Festival (Caracas, Venezuela), the Classical Mandolin Society of America Convention (Toronto), Salon De Virtuosi events (New York), the Millrace Festival (Cambridge, Ontario), the Debrecen International Flower Carnival (Hungary), the HungaroFest in Toronto (Sankofa Square), the Budapest Spring Festival and the August 20 National Celebrations (Hungary), the Eisteddfod Traditional Music Festival (Brooklyn), and countless Hungarian folk music and dance festivals and events in cities including São Paulo, New Orleans, Miami, Austin, San Diego, Cleveland, Calgary, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Edmonton.
He has also performed for numerous dignitaries, politicians, and public figures at venues such as the United Nations Headquarters, the Consulate General of Hungary in New York, the Embassy of Hungary in Washington, D.C., the Governor’s Residences of New York and New Jersey, the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London, and the official residence of the Mayor of New York City, Gracie Mansion.
CULTURAL ADVOCACY
In 2023, Kalman co-founded the Hungarian Folklife Association (HFA), a network that connects organizations and individuals dedicated to preserving and promoting Hungarian folk dance and folk music, and provides information to the wider public about Hungarian folklore in the United States, Canada, and worldwide. He served for many years on the advisory board of the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum, HFA’s predecessor, and in 2003 produced the compilation album Visszhang (Echo), the first collection of recordings by Hungarian folk ensembles active in North America to be published outside Hungary.
Kalman also created and hosted Tanchaz Talk, the world’s only English-language podcast series primarily focused on Hungarian folk music.
As part of his commitment to Hungarian culture and the long-term preservation of traditions, Kalman has given numerous folklore-related lectures and presentations, including at the Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities in Budapest, within the ReConnect Hungary Master Class series, at the annual conferences of the Hungarian Folklife Association, and at academic events organized by the American Hungarian Educators Association. In 2013, Kalman was a featured performer at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Hungarian Heritage: Roots to Revival), appearing both as a musician and as a panelist speaking about how his family transmits traditions across generations.
Kalman’s contributions to Hungarian folk heritage are documented in several publications, including “The Story of Hungarian Folk” (B. Jávorszky, 2013), “Tanchaz 50” (B. Jávorszky, 2022), and “Magyarnak Lenni Amerikaban II” (Being Hungarian in America) (I. Antal-Ferencz, 2024). He has also received recognition from the Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and from the Governors of New York and Ohio.
Kalman has appeared on CBS’s nationally broadcast Sunday Morning program, on Toronto’s Breakfast TV, on radio stations WQXR and WFMU, on New York’s WNBC television, and on Hungary’s Duna Television. His home life, built around Hungarian traditions, was also featured in 2012 in the premiere episode of HGTV Canada’s Four Houses Canada, titled in listings as the series’ debut episode. Kalman’s folklore work has been profiled by numerous Hungarian media outlets, including Magyar Nemzet, Kanadai-Amerikai Magyarság, Hungarian Conservative, Bocskai Radio, and Folkradio.
MUSIC TEACHING
Kalman has worked as a violin and chamber music instructor at numerous camps, seminars, and workshops, including the Csipke Hungarian Folkdance and Music Camp in Michigan, the Balkan Folk Music & Dance Workshops held in New York and California (Mendocino), and the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum folk dance and folk music symposia in Pennsylvania. He has created musical arrangements and dance choreographies for many performing ensembles, including the Tamburitzans, Csűrdöngölő (New Jersey), Kodály (Toronto), and the Cleveland Hungarian Scout Ensemble.
DISCOGRAPHY
Kalman’s impressive discography spans several decades of traditional Hungarian folk music recordings, including the albums Departure (Gyanta), Our Roots (Életfa), Carpathian Invasion (Live in London 2005), Szép Szivárvány (with Natália Zagyva), and Tiszta Szívvel (Csík Band). He has also contributed to numerous studio recordings that blend different genres, including his solo album Exposed and pioneering collaborations with Crossing Paths (ethno-jazz), Kruno Spisic (gypsy jazz), and Dallam-Dougou (West African/Hungarian fusion).
CRITICAL RECEPTION
According to The New York Times, Kalman has “stood out for his warmth and musical versatility”. Attitude (The Dancer’s Magazine) has called him a “violin virtuoso”. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette observed that Kalman “displayed his mastery of many ethnic instruments rarely heard in concert”. Cleveland’s Plain Dealer wrote that Kalman “proved to be an excellent showman as well as a versatile player of five different instruments.”
Kalman’s studio recordings have also been praised in several leading music publications. U.K.’s fRoots called him a “skilful, experienced player, particularly on violin” and his playing “quite refreshing”. France’s Trad Magazine wrote: “Ses qualités de violoniste sont indéniables : grande précision et propreté du jeu” (His qualities as a violinist are undeniable: great precision and cleanness of playing). U.S.’s Dirty Linen commented that Kalman’s “one-man-show aspect is secondary to the excellent musical results.” Splendid noted that his solo album was “entertaining and musically satisfying.”
OTHER MUSICAL ACTIVITIES
Kalman has collaborated with many internationally renowned artists, including Merita Halili & The Raif Hyseni Band, the Mark Morris Dance Group, Márta Sebestyén, the Balogh Kálmán Gypsy Band, Ismail Lumanovski (Smajko), Harmonia, Beyond the Pale, and Zlatne Uste. In 2003, he was selected from a large field of violinists to audition for Cirque du Soleil. He also contributed to the score of the film The Maiden Danced to Death, which Hungary submitted for consideration for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 85th Oscars in 2011.
LEGAL TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
In parallel with his musical and cultural work, Kalman is an international lawyer with nearly 30 years of wide-ranging experience in courtrooms, boardrooms and classrooms throughout the United States and Canada. He graduated in 1998 from Brooklyn Law School (where he won the CALI Excellence for the Future Award for achieving the highest grade in the Food & Drug Law course) and is licensed to practice law in Florida, Ontario, New York, and New Jersey. From 1998 to 1999 he served as a judicial law clerk at the Superior Court of New Jersey, then from 1999 to 2007 he worked in private practice at two major New Jersey/New York law firms, representing a wide range of companies, including Fortune 500 corporations. In 2007 he moved to Toronto to become Associate General Counsel at Iovate Health Sciences, creator of some of the most iconic supplement brands in the world, such as Hydroxycut and Muscle Tech.
Kalman returned to private practice in 2011, when he founded his own law firm, which later grew into Magyar, Bogle & O’Hara LLP, a law partnership with offices in Toronto, New York, and Naples, Florida. As Managing Partner, he led the boutique firm providing legal services to clients of all sizes—publicly traded corporations, private companies, and individual entrepreneurs—in Canada, the United States, Hungary, and around the world. His work focused on complex transactions, intellectual property matters, crisis management, and litigation strategy for clients in sectors such as vitamins and dietary supplements, healthcare, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, performing arts, natural health products, fitness, automotive, aviation, sales and distribution networks, insurance, and manufacturing.
In March 2024, he retired from private practice and subsequently became co-founder of Core Legacy Inc., a private Florida corporation. He oversees the business affairs of the company as its Legal Director, guiding and investing in projects and people focused on establishing solid foundational cores and building lasting legacies around the world, including in Hungary.
LEGAL TEACHING AND ADVISORY ROLES
Kalman is a supervisor and judge for the upper-year “moot court” course at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, regarded as one of the world’s leading law schools. Since the 1990s, he has taught business law courses at universities and colleges; most recently he served as an adjunct professor of business law at Keiser University on its Naples, Florida campus, Florida’s largest private, non-profit university. Previously, he taught at Seneca College in Toronto (Canadian Business Law) and at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey (Civil Litigation – paralegal program), and has been a guest lecturer in the Department of Fashion Design at New York’s New School University.
Kalman is on the boards of the non-profit organizations Hungarian Canadian Medical Association and the m-Institute, and is Secretary of the American Hungarian Chamber of Commerce (New York). He has been on the governing board of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in Canada and, in 2021, the Hungarian Canadian Business Association honored him with its “Businessman of the Year” award.
SPORTS-RELATED WORK
Kalman has served as a specialized advisor to sports-related organizations and leaders on matters including litigation, corporate law and governance, complex transactions, intellectual property, marketing, leasing, sponsorships, licensing agreements, data protection, and insurance. His clients have included sports nutrition brands, Olympians, coaches, clubs, federations and leagues, sports apparel and equipment manufacturers and distributors, and fitness professionals.
For decades, Kalman has held leadership and advisory roles in sports clubs, working closely with athletes and sports executives. He is currently an advisor to FC Naples, the first professional soccer club in Naples, which competes in USL League One, the third tier of the United States soccer pyramid. He previously served for many years on the board of the Toronto High Park Football Club, one of the largest community soccer clubs in the Greater Toronto Area. He took on the pivotal role of Vice President of Football as he helped guide the Club in joining the Ontario Player Development League (OPDL) and receiving Ontario Soccer’s Club Excellence Award – Gold Level, while overseeing the building of the Club’s technical and player development programs.
Kalman plays tennis as a member at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club and Naples’ Players Club.
PERSONAL LIFE
In 2021, Kalman published a self-help memoir, titled “Put Your Pants On and Get to Work – Ten Principles for Zestful Living“, in which he guides readers through his unusual personal history while decoding his ten principles for a zestful life. He is married (to Beatrix Nagy), has three children (Csenge, Soma, and Bibor), and divides his time between Naples, Florida and Toronto, Ontario.