Kalman Magyar is a renowned musician who has appeared in the world’s most prominent performing venues and obscurest ethnic community halls. He performs primarily with the Gyanta Band, North America’s preeminent and most popular Hungarian folk music ensemble. In 1987, he co-founded the Eletfa Hungarian Folk Music Band, the continent’s first folk music group dedicated to playing Táncház (Hungarian village) material, and remains engaged in building a legacy for Hungarian folk culture for future generations.
Kalman was born in New Jersey in 1973 to Hungarian immigrant parents who were actively involved in the perpetuation of their heritage throughout North America. At the age of five, Kalman was introduced to the violin through the Suzuki Method, and went on to study for a decade with Stanley Bednar at the Manhattan School of Music’s Preparatory Division, where he also studied piano and viola, in addition to his intensive work in jazz, composition and theory. He rose to become the School’s principal violist until his graduation.
In 1991, he was awarded a prestigious full scholarship from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh to perform with the Tamburitzans, the nation’s leading Eastern European music and dance troupe. He toured within all four corners of the North American continent while receiving a Bachelor’s in Science degree from Duquesne’s Business School. Through the Tamburitzans, Kalman was exposed to the world of Romanian and Balkan music, which became the impetus for his solo album Exposed as well as his work with the maverick groups Crossing Paths (ethno jazz) and Dallam-Dougou (West African/Hungarian fusion) after his return to New York in 1995 when he began his legal career.
Kalman has performed in world-class venues such as Epcot Center (Orlando, Florida), Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), B.B. King’s Blues Club (NYC), Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), Joe’s Pub (NYC), Fiddler’s Elbow (London, UK), Knitting Factory (NYC), Rio Hotel & Casino (Las Vegas), Fono (Budapest), Place-des-Arts (Montréal), Bitter End (NYC), New Jersey State Theater, Drom Taberna (Toronto), Tonic (NYC), HotHouse (Chicago), Brooklyn Academy of Music, Trumpets Jazz Club (Montclair, NJ), Liberty State Park and the Statute of Liberty, Tennessee Performing Arts Center (Nashville), Living Arts Centre (Mississauga), Darke Hall (Regina), Town Hall (NYC), Heinz & Benedum Halls (Pittsburgh), the World Trade Center (NYC), Henry Ford Museum (Detroit), and with the Christmas Revels on Broadway (at Symphony Space).
Kalman has been a featured musician at several music festivals, including the Mondial Des Cultures (Drummondville, Quebec), St. Ceciliatide International Music Festival (London, UK), DjangoFest Chicago, Clearwater Revival Festival (New York), South American Hungarian Folkdance Festival in Caracas (Venezuela), Classical Mandolin Society of America Convention (Toronto), Salon De Virtuosi (New York), Folklorama (Winnipeg), Millrace Festival (Cambridge, Ontario), International Flower Festival (Debrecen, Hungary), HungaroFest at Yonge-Dundas Square (Toronto), Budapest Spring and August 20th Festivals (Hungary), Eisteddfod Traditional Music Festival (Brooklyn), and scores of Hungarian music and dance festivals and events (including in Sao Paolo, New Orleans, Miami, Austin, San Diego, Cleveland, Calgary, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Edmonton).
He has also entertained celebrities, politicians and dignitaries at the United Nations, Hungarian Consulate in New York, the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the New York and New Jersey Governors’ Mansions, the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London, and New York City’s Gracie Mansion.
Kalman has recorded with a wide array of artists, including collaborating as a featured soloist on recordings by international folk/world music sensations Csik Band and Merita Halili & The Raif Hyseni Band. He has collaborated and performed with other well-known artists, including the Mark Morris Dance Group, Márta Sebestyén, Kálmán Balogh Gypsy Band, Ismael Lumanovski (Smajko), Harmonia, Beyond the Pale, and Zlatne Uste. In 2003, Kalman was plucked from a great number of violinists to audition for Cirque du Soleil by its casting department.