Bela Bartok: First Rhapsody

Erno Kallai, violin
Rohan DeSilva, piano

Recorded live at Steinway Hall, New York, 2007

Biography

"...Kallai performed with good colour, superb intonation and exemplary poise. In his posture and position, he looked as good as he sounded."
"...he did full justice to the concertos many moods and never once produced a sound that was less than beautiful."

Dennis Rooney, The Strad, March, 2008

Winner of the Eleventh Carl Flesch International Violin Competition, Erno Kallai is establishing himself as one of the most exciting young violinist today. In December 2008 he made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing Prokofiev's Violin Concerto no.2 with the Juilliard Orchestra, under James DePreist.

Erno Kallai has played for Hungarian radio and Television, and he has appeared in Austria, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Most recently he performed chamber music concerts throughout the U.S. with Itzhak Perlman and members of the Perlman Music Program. In 2008, he appeared on the McGraw-Hill Companys Young Artist's Showcase with host Bob Sherman on WQXR.

He has won numerous awards and prizes, including first prize at the Zathureczky Violin Competition in 2003, awards from the Semmering Music Festival in 2004 (which included the best interpretation of a work by Kodaly, and award for the best interpretation of a Viennese Classic work with his performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto No.5), a Valerie Beth Schwartz Career Grant from Salone de Virtuosi in 2007, first prize at the Juilliard Concerto Competition in 2008, among others.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Erno Kallai began early violin training with his father. At age of twelve, he had been admitted to the Exceptionally Talented Childrens class of the Franz Liszt University of Music where he studied with Andras Csontha and Eszter Perenyi. In 2006 he moved to the United States to study with Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School, where he still continues his studies as a full scholarship student.

Erno Kallai is playing an 1864 Jean Baptiste Vuillaume violin, a generous gift to The Juilliard School from the Estate of Helen Marshall Woodward lent to him from the Juilliard Rare instrument Collection.