Kalman Magyar is a renowned musician who has appeared in the world’s most prominent performing venues and obscurest ethnic community halls. He co-founded the Eletfa Hungarian Folk Music Band, North America’s first folk music group dedicated to playing Táncház (Hungarian village) material, in 1987. Since moving to Toronto in 2007, he has performed primarily with the Gyanta Band of Ontario and Quebec, North America’s preeminent and most popular Hungarian folk music ensemble. Kalman remains actively 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, and has continued to travel widely as a musician parallel with his legal career. Through the Tamburitzans, Kalman was exposed to the world of Romanian and Balkan music, which was a logical extension of his Hungarian background. These experiences were 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 Jersey in 1995.
Kalman has appeared 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), 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 performer 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), Budapest Spring and August 20th Festivals (Hungary), Eisteddfod Traditional Music Festival (Brooklyn), and scores of Hungarian Music and Dance Festivals (including in Calgary, Louisiana, Vancouver, San Francisco, Montreal, Chicago, and Edmonton).
He has played for 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. The many other cities he has played in include Sao Paolo (Brazil), New Orleans, Miami, San Francisco, Austin, San Diego, and Cleveland.
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.