Kalman Magyar is an international leader in maintaining and building a legacy for Hungarian folk culture for future generations, particularly in North America.
In 2023, he co-founded the Hungarian Folklife Association (HFA), which administers a network connecting organizations and individuals involved in preserving and sharing Hungarian folk dance and music, and provides information to the public about Hungarian folklife in the United States, Canada, and beyond. He was a longtime Advisory Board Member for the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum, the HFA’s predecessor, and in 2003, he produced Visszhang (Echo) for Hungaria Records, a compilation of Hungarian folk bands from North America, the first of its kind outside of Hungary.
Kalman is also the creator and host of Tanchaz Talk, the world’s only English-language program/podcast focusing primarily on Hungarian folk music.
From a young age, Kalman studied at folk music camps and seminars throughout the United States and Hungary. His early music mentors included the legendary Transylvanian fiddler Sándor Fodor “Neti” and Béla Halmos, one of the Godfathers of the Hungarian folk music revival movement. He studied folk dancing with the likes of Sándor Timár and Zoltán Zsuráfszky. In 1987, he co-founded the Eletfa Hungarian Folk Music Band, one of the United States’ treasured assets of Hungarian folk music. He has primarily performed with Canada-based Gyanta Band, North America’s most popular Hungarian folk music group, following his move to Toronto in 2007. He has arranged music and created dance choreographies for many performing groups, including the Tamburitzans, Csűrdöngölő (New Jersey), Kodaly (Toronto), and the Cleveland Hungarian Scout Ensemble.
As part of his continuing efforts to advocate for and build a legacy for Hungarian culture, Kalman has given many folklore-related lectures and presentations, including at the Institute of Musicology – Research Centre for the Humanities in Budapest, for ReConnect Hungary’s Master Class series, the Hungarian Folklife Association’s Annual Conferences, and at conferences organized by the American Hungarian Educators Association. Kalman was a featured artist at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Hungarian Heritage: Roots to Revival) in 2013, both as a musician and a panelist discussing the intergenerational transmission of tradition within his family.
Kalman’s contributions to the legacy of Hungarian folklore have been documented in published works, including “The Story of Hungarian Folk” (Jávorszky B., 2013), “Tanchaz 50” ((Jávorszky B., 2022), and “Magyarnak Lenni Amerikaban II” (Being Hungarian in America) (Antal-Ferencz I., 2024). He has also been honored by the Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Governors of the State of New York and State of Ohio.
He has also taught violin and ensemble classes at many camps, seminars and workshops, including Csipke Hungarian Folkdance and Music Camp in Michigan, Balkan Folk Music & Dance Workshops in New York and California (Mendocino), and at the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum‘s Folkdance and Music Symposia in Pennsylvania.
A leading proponent of bringing Hungarian folklore to the global stage through media, Kalman has performed on CBS’s nationally televised Sunday Morning show and has appeared live on Toronto’s Breakfast TV show, WQXR and WFMU radio stations, WNBC television in New York City, and DunaTV in Hungary. His Hungarian-centric home life was featured in the premier episode of HGTV Canada’s Four Houses Canada in 2012.
Kalman’s work with respect to his folklore-related activities has been profiled in several Hungarian media outlets, including in the Magyar Nemzet, Kanadai-Amerikai Magyarság, Hungarian Conservative, and Folkradio. HaHe has relman’s e has