Ensemble Muzsikás

The WINNER of the WOMEX Award 2008 for World Music! After 35 years of their unrivaled career, MUZSIKÁS is the most renowned and popular Hungarian folkmusic ensemble worldwide and in their home-country as well. MUZSIKÁS pioneered the global acceptance of Hungarian folk music that is now equal with all the other styles of music. Due to their unique musical skills, instrumental knowledge and musical versatility, they can cope with playing on different music scenes, collaborating with various noted musicians and groups, from folk and world-music to classical and jazz, and even to alternative rock music (they played in live with Woven Hand in 2008). They have toured all over the world including nearly every European country, in addition to North-America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. They have already presented their exceptional live performances at the greatest festivals and in the most significant concert halls, such as the Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Center and Queen Elisabeth Hall in London, Théatre de la Ville and Cité de la Music in Paris, Santa Cecila Academy in Rome, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Carnegie Hall in New York.

Mihály Sipos, violin

He was born in 1948 in Budapest, Hungary. His ancestors from his father's side were shepherds, his grandmother knew their old songs and dances. The grandfather of Sipos on his mother's side was a great singer and lover of classical music, he gave the first violin to the little child Sipos. Sipos's mother learned piano at the Liszt Music Academy, so he grew up in a musical surrounding.
Sipos became a pupil of one of the famous music schools established by Zoltán Kodály, where he started to play the violin at the age of seven. He studied the classical violin for 11 years.
He started to be involved in the traditional music since 1972. In 1973 he founded the group Muzsikás with his two friends, Dániel Hamar and Sándor Csoóri. He became the "primás" of the band. Besides of the violin he plays the "citera" in Muzsikás. He is the artistic director of most of the concerts and ensemble recordings, and he is the coordinator between the Muzsikás and the classical guest musicians.

Lászlo Porteleki, violin & tambura

Porteleki was born in Budapest, but grew up in a little Transdanubian village named Ozora, where his grandfather was a village musician, playing "citera". The child Porteleki learned this instrument and played together with his grandfather in different village feasts.
When he was 12 his family moved to Budapest where he started learning the classical violin. He regularly visited the Muzsikás "dance house" and started to be interetsed in the traditional music. He formed his first group in 1975 and a year later he founded the folkmusic group TÉKA, where he was the violonist and the solo singer. With the Téka ensemble he released 4 albums and besides the Muzsikás, Téka ran the most popular "tanchaz" club in Budapest of those years.
From the beginning he has collected folk music for the Academy of Science of Hungary, meanwhile he has played together with the local folk musicians. Porteleki regards them as his musical masters.
He left Téka in 1991 and became a professional musician of the Honvéd Art Ensemble.
In 1996 he became member of the Muzsikas, he plays the violin, the lute and he sings there, as well.

Péter Éri, viola, flute & mandolin

He was born in 1953 in Budapest, Hungary. As a ten-year old child he won the first prize of a dance competition with dancing the Lads's Dance of Kalotaszeg, accompanied by his school-fellow Andras Schiff, the world-famous pianist of today.
His step-father, Dr György Martin, a famous etnographer, brought the child Éri to his trips where he collected the Hungarian traditional dances and instrumental music and consequently Éri made his first connections with living musical and dance traditions. When he was 14, he became a dancer of the Bartók Dance Ensemble, where he was an active dancer for six years. His interest in this music grew and he became the bass player of the first Hungarian revival band, the Sebő Group. In this time the singer of this band was Márta Sebestyén, still a young girl.
Meanwhile when the Muzsikás was established in 1973, Éri became guest-musican of the band, from 1978 he became a full member.
Éri graduated in the Eötvös University of Budapest as an etnographer and philologist of Rumanian language and literature.
He plays the viola, the three-string "kontra", mandolin and different kinds of flutes.
Éri is married, he has a son and a doughter, both of them play music. His wife is an artistic designer.

Dániel Hamar, bass, hit-gardon & percussion

Dániel Hamar was born in 1951 in Budapest, Hungary. He started to play the piano when he was seven and took up the classical double-bass at fifteen. He became a member of the Symphony Orchestra of St. Stephan Grammar School, and although this orchestra was considered to be amateur, the best Hungarian soloists and conductors performed with them, and many of its young musicians became professionals. Hamar started to play traditional Hungarian music when he was 22. As was the case with almost all classically- trained musicians, Hamar knew little about traditional Hungarian music until he began to play it. He visited remote Hungarian villages to learn the old techniques of playing, and established the group Muzsikás with his friends Sándor Csoóri and Mihály Sipos in 1973. Hamar plays double-bass and percussion instruments in the band. He is the spokesman for Muzsikás and the official leader of the band. Dániel Hamar graduated as a geophysicist from the Eötvös Universityin 1974 and earned a Ph.D in 1994. He is a senior research fellow of the Space Research Group of Eötvös University, Budapest. Dániel Hamar is married and has four sons.