{"id":1091035,"date":"2023-11-11T21:48:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T02:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bocskairadio.org\/?p=1091035"},"modified":"2024-01-20T13:01:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T18:01:25","slug":"kalman-magyar-jr-a-lawyer-teaching-hungarian-folk-dance-traditions-in-an-american-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bocskairadio.org\/en\/kalman-magyar-jr-a-lawyer-teaching-hungarian-folk-dance-traditions-in-an-american-podcast\/","title":{"rendered":"K\u00e1lm\u00e1n Magyar Jr: a Lawyer Teaching Hungarian Folk & Dance Traditions in an American Podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: hungarianconservative.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This is the English version of the\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0originally published on\u00a0<\/em>Magyar Nemzet.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Hungarian folk dance movement started in North America in the 1970s. K\u00e1lm\u00e1n Magyar Jr, a successful lawyer in Canada and America, still considers the folk music education his parents provided, as well as performing and entertaining Hungarians living abroad, extremely important.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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You work as a lawyer but have never stopped making music. Where does this vocation come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My parents weren\u2019t musicians, but my sister and I were sent to violin lessons with Erika Boyd, who learned the observation, listening, and imitation teaching methodology from Japanese master Suzuki. This is excellent for future folk musicians. Later, at the Manhattan School of Music, we engaged in more complex studies: classical violin and viola, music theory, ear training, composition, choir, jazz, and chamber music, and even played in a symphony orchestra. We studied with the school\u2019s director, Stanley Bednar, who cared little for repertoire and worked more on tone, posture, the use of the bow, and musicality. He asked me to stop playing the Transylvanian contrapuntal accompaniment (balanced accompaniment emphasizing the rhythm, mainly played on the bass violin with a deeper tone) because it made my left wrist very tight. If I played it one night, he immediately noticed it the next morning. Nevertheless, I continued to play folk music, especially in the summer, when I could learn from people like famous Hungarian folk musician B\u00e9la Halmos in the camps in\u00a0J\u00e1szber\u00e9ny<\/a>\u00a0and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Your parents led the Hung\u00e1ria folk dance group. Later you also joined it and even formed the band \u00c9letfa (Life Tree) with your sister. Why was it important for you to practice folk music in so many ways?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My parents formed the Hung\u00e1ria children\u2019s group when we were also children, in which we performed several times. Like many other first-generation immigrant children, I spent my weekends cherishing my Hungarian heritage. I went to folk dancing every Friday night, Hungarian school on Saturday mornings, scouting in the afternoons, and then altar services, community lunches, and cultural commemorations on Sundays. I didn\u2019t have much of a social life in secondary school, I didn\u2019t play sports, so I missed out on many of the things that are part of life for young people in America.\u00a0I felt comfortable in the Hungarian community, although I was a bit of a black sheep: the aforementioned activities were only secondary to my music studies.<\/p>\n

The latter was the foundation of all the good things in my life: my university studies, my marriage, and my vocation. In 1987, we founded the band \u00c9letfa, at which time we no longer danced at the Hung\u00e1ria, but my sister and I often played music together and we also found a double bass player. Attila Papp was a member of Hung\u00e1ria, so we started as a house band, but soon we also started to be invited to perform in Toronto and Montreal, and we regularly played in New York at the dance halls of the Hungarian House, too.<\/p>\n

Then, during my university years, new members joined \u00c9letfa again. My sister graduated from medical school in Hungary, after which her husband joined us for contrapuntal accompaniment and my wife for singing and dancing, so we already had an extended \u00c9letfa family. Since then, it has grown into an open band of family and friends, even a movement.<\/p>\n

You mentioned that your life had been different from that of your contemporaries. How difficult was it? How did it feel when your parents said no to your quitting music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have gone through this dilemma with my family, too. When quitting music, my daughter and I agreed that she had to take up tap dancing instead, which she has been doing ever since, after school, 25 hours a week. My son also had to stop playing music when he started playing professional football. But last year he studied in Hungary for a year, where he began to play the violin again. Thanks to the \u00d3buda School of Music, his musical knowledge is now much more developed, and he has a different approach to folk music. Sometimes he tells me off when I don\u2019t play authentically, saying \u2018I\u2019m faking it\u2019. And he is right. When I was a teenager, I didn\u2019t have access to the original musical materials. My parents could have been more lenient too, but with them, music was the only thing on the table. It is still very difficult to say no to K\u00e1lm\u00e1n Magyar Sr today. He believes that you can\u2019t stop doing things, but you have to stand behind them even harder. That is why he was able to achieve so much in the field of folklore.<\/p>\n

Today you play in Canada with the band Gyanta (Resin). Have you ever been in danger of burnout?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The band Gyanta was formed by musicians from Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa, and now I\u2019m the one leading it. We play mainly at dance events, sometimes festivals and balls, with the addition of stage performances. I\u2019ll be 50 in November, and I really feel now that making music, with all the travelling and little sleep, is more for the young. This year I\u2019m taking my son to see Gyanta perform, so he can witness what we do. And I would like to take on less and less, especially since we are moving to Florida in a few years. I\u2019ll come back for a gig or two from there as well, but I will not be able to take all the East Coast travel anymore.\u00a0I see the future in young folk musicians, and I like to inspire others, but it\u2019s something that is hard to pass on.\u00a0A wise dancer, Norbert Kov\u00e1cs, said to me a few weeks ago that people in Hungary should learn from those in the diaspora to cultivate their culture with a pure heart and love. What is needed is not a competitive, one-upmanship, critical attitude, which is unfortunately the case within the movement, especially in Hungary. My son is right when he tells me that I don\u2019t play accurately, but what is most important to me is that everyone has fun. This is the attitude that should be taught.<\/p>\n

How \u2018Hungarian\u2019 is the youth community in America today? How much do they go back to Hungary?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was born, my parents had only lived in America for ten years. Naturally, their circle of friends was all Hungarian, with only a few American colleagues or neighbours. Those born here, on the other hand, have a more mixed circle of friends, and our children have an even more mixed circle. One could criticize my children, for example, for not going to Hungarian school, scouting, or church. However, our American and Canadian friends might say as well that they are not American or Canadian enough. My daughter Csenge studied at the Bart\u00f3k Conservatory in Budapest in ninth grade and wants to go back. She is now studying psychology and economics, will finish university next year, and then wants to get a master\u2019s degree in Hungary and continue her folk music studies there. My son Soma was in eleventh grade also in Hungary last year and is now finishing secondary school here. He has not stopped playing folk music and has found his place in Gyanta, too. My younger daughter B\u00edbor is only in tenth grade, but she will probably not study in Hungary, as she cannot leave the dance studio for a long time.<\/p>\n

How do you build the folk dance movement today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No longer by performing at events, but with special projects. As a first step,\u00a0during the pandemic, I launched a podcast titled\u00a0T\u00e1nch\u00e1z Talk<\/em> in English.\u00a0On Facebook, I saw a Serbian guy from Chicago playing music and talking about events from the eighties. I found it so funny that I started something similar, which later evolved into an interview show. More than fifty broadcasts of\u00a0T\u00e1nch\u00e1z Talk<\/em>\u00a0teach about Hungarian folk music and the Hungarian dance house movement in America. My children speak Hungarian, and my grandchildren might, but my great-grandchildren probably won\u2019t, so I want them, too, to be able to use what I\u2019ve collected.<\/p>\n

Another initiative I\u2019m working on is an awareness-raising organization promoting tours, camps, and festivals. My parents founded a similar thing in the seventies, but it has died since they moved back. Now we are starting a new organization called the Hungarian Folklife Association, where everything related to Hungarian folk culture in America will be available. There will be a common calendar, for example, to avoid clashes, or a historical catalogue describing the entire Hungarian folk dance movement in the US to date. In America, not only Hungarian dance companies have been created, but also an international dance movement, which is very special and unique. With my legal and musical skills, I hope to pass on the knowledge to future generations as well. However, I have to do it completely differently from my parents, as young people can only be reached through apps now. I want to create something like the\u00a0Hungarian Heritage House<\/a>. Part of the project is also the University of Chicago, a hands-on skills meeting place for folk dancers and folk musicians. There will be a course for dance teachers on how to teach the Mez\u0151s\u00e9g turns or for musicians on how to run a dance house.<\/p>\n

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