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Profs. Klara Bahcall and Eli Kalman perform together during a broadcast of “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen” on Wisconsin Public Radio (contributed photo).

University of Wisconsin Oshkosh professors Eli Kalman and Klara Bahcall will perform their “Hungarian Fairies” recital for violin and piano together in concert on October 21 in a live Chicago radio broadcast.

The Bahcall-Kalman Duo is returning to 98.7 WFMT Chicago’s Classics series for the third time. The duo has performed extensively on live broadcasts from WPR at “Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen” and has been featured in other esteemed concert venues. They lovingly promote a unique repertoire for violin and piano which is often overlooked, forgotten or neglected.

Online, listeners can enjoy the live WFMT performance on Oct. 21 HERE.

About Klara Fenyö Bahcall

Bahcall was born in Budapest, Hungary. She graduated from the Bela Bartok Conservatory of Music with a degree in Violin Performance and received her Performance Artist and Pedagogy Degree from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, Hungary, where she studied with Semyon Snitkovsky, student and later successor of David Oistrach as the Head of the Moscow Conservatory.

Bahcall won a two-year full scholarship for postgraduate studies to the Banff Arts Centre, Canada, where she studied with numerous world-known artists and teachers. She won first place at the Hungarian National Violin Competition and was also the winner of the Budapest Chamber Music Competition.

Until coming to the United States, she was the Concertmaster of the Hungarian National Opera and was soloist of the Hungarian Philharmonia Artist Management, as well as the soloist of the Hungarian Radio.

Bahcall is actively concertizing and has given recitals, solo performances throughout Hungary, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States. She appeared numerous times on the Chazen Concert Series of the Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison. Bahcall has given Chamber Music recitals on the prestigious “Monday Evening Concert Series” of WFMT, Chicago, Chicago’s classical music radio station, the Green Lake Festival, and has been the Concertmaster for 11 years and a repeat soloist with the Oshkosh Symphony Orchestra. In September of 2012 she was invited fifth time as a featured soloists of the International Jewish Festival in Hungary.

Professor Bahcall teaches violin, viola and Chamber Music at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where she is also the director of the String Festival. Since 2000, she has served as the Music Director of the “Chamber Music Week at the Clearing,” an intensive chamber music program for adults in Door County, Wisconsin.

About Eli Kalman

Romanian-born pianist Eli Kalman has performed extensively in Romania, Israel, Germany, Hungary, Japan, United States and Canada. Hailing from Romania and Israel, he was the recipient of the Paul Collins Wisconsin Distinguished Graduate Fellowship for Excellence at UW-Madison.  He performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, on “San Francisco Performances” and “Tuesday Evening Concert Series” in Virginia joining cellist Amit Peled, on the Emmanuel Music-Schumann Chamber Series in Boston, the Connoisseur Series at Wichita State University, Myra Hess Series in Chicago and on other venues.

Kalman was an enthusiastic artist-in-residence at the Chamber Music Festival at Banff, Canada and for five years a guest artist at the Token Creek Festival. Recent solo and chamber appearances have included the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall with tubist Marty Erickson, the Krieger String Series at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, soloist with Water City Chamber Orchestra, the Sylvia Adalman Artist Recital Series at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, “Sunday Afternoon Live from the Chazen” live on WPR, Farley’s House of Pianos Series in Madison and Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society. He also performs frequently with Pro Arte’s cellist Parry Karp from UW-Madison in faculty concert series within the University of Wisconsin system and other venues.

As a recording artist, he recorded the works for solo piano and cello and piano by Erwin Junger in 2001 and in 2006 Robert Schumann’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano with violinist Rose Mary Harbison. Other recordings of his recitals have been heard on Jerusalem Radio and for the most part on Wisconsin National Public Radio and WFMT in Chicago. His latest recording entitled “The Jewish Soul” is with cellist Amit Peled from the Peabody Institute and it was released on Centaur Records in 2009.

Dr. Kalman spends his summer as piano faculty at the Young Artist Seminars at Rocky Ridge Music Center in Colorado where he shares with many students his passion for music with the greatness of a unique natural setting at 9000 feet altitude. Since 2006, he has served as Professor of Piano at University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh and he is also on the piano faculty at the association “Maestro,” which is a non-profit organization in Israel that provides a home base for accomplished Israeli musicians living abroad. Prior to his appointment at UW Oshkosh he was on the piano faculty at the Center of Arts, Mizra, Israel and previously at the Lyceum of Arts, Baia Mare in Romania.

Dr. Kalman earned his Diploma in Piano Performance from the Academy of Music “G. Dima” in Cluj, Romania, the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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