Balázs Istvánfi

Istvanfi BalázsHe was born is Budapest in 1972 and got his first degree as architect in 1996. He has been playing folk music since he was a child, and he has been playing bagpipe-music for 20 years.

István Pál, Sándor Csoóri jr., István Adorján were teaching him for the first time and continued his studies at the Folk Music Department of the Liszt Academy of Music as the student of Zoltán Juhász. Over the last few years he contributed in several recordings, and he also recorded three solo albums as well: Szól a duda – The bagpipe is blown (2002), Toronyalja (2003) and Idő nélkül – Timelessly (2007)). He does not only play traditional bagpipe music, but also composes his own tracks of which the formal language and style are rooted in authentic music. He is a virtuoso and his musical thinking makes him one of the most unique musicians in Hungary, he was also awarded Hungarian state honour of Young Master of Folk Arts. He is also one of the very few artists who can fabricate bagpipes. His bagpipes were successful several times at Hungarian instrument exhibitions. He founded his latest musical formation, Paganum – a bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy duo – in 2009 with András Németh.

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