Famed hun­gar­i­an vio­lin­ist Zoltán Mága first time in Cleveland

The world-famous vio­lin­ist Zoltán Mága, his son Zoltán Mága Jr., and the Budapest Gyp­sy Vir­tu­osi orches­tra will per­form a first time ever in Cleve­land con­cert. The con­cert is orga­nized by the Foun­da­tion for Hun­gar­i­ans in Cleve­land ( Cleve­lan­di Mag­yarokért Alapítvány ) and the Col­lege of Arts and Sci­ences along with the Depart­ment of Clas­si­cal and Mod­ern Lan­guages and Cul­tures at John Car­roll University.

It will take place on Saturday, 

Novem­ber 5, 2022 , start­ing at 7 p.m. in the JCU Kulas Audi­to­ri­um con­cert hall, 

1 John Car­roll Blvd, Uni­ver­si­ty Heights, OH 44118.

The two-part con­cert will be orga­nized as a char­i­ty: the artist wants to con­tribute to the fundrais­ing for the air con­di­tion­ing equip­ment of the St. Emer­ic Roman Catholic Church in Cleveland. 

More infor­ma­tion and tick­ets are avail­able  at www​.cleve​landimag​yaro​kert​.org and by call­ing 440−360−0595. 

Sup­port­er tick­ets are  $40, stu­dents $20, chil­dren under 12 free. $50 on the day of the con­cert. Every­one is wel­come!! Buy your tick­ets in time, a lim­it­ed num­ber of places will be sold, depend­ing on the audi­to­ri­um’s capac­i­ty. Park­ing is free, and there are no mask­ing or oth­er health restrictions.

ABOUT ZOLTÁN MÁGA

Vio­lin­ist vir­tu­oso Zoltán Mága lives and cre­ates in a small but world-famous coun­try in Cen­tral Europe, Hungary.

His unique, instant­ly recog­nis­able vir­tu­oso play, his char­ac­ter­is­tic crossover style min­gling clas­si­cal music, folk music, pop music and oth­er gen­res of music have earned world­wide recog­ni­tion and acclaim. His artis­tic reper­toire ranges from folk music through clas­si­cal pieces to jazz and even pop music. The dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of his art are vir­tu­os­i­ty, an immense force, a desire com­ing from deep in his soul to give, and a hope that music and the love that appears in it can be a means to make the world better.

He is one of those artists who, being com­mit­ted to accom­plish­ing a mis­sion in the first place, rep­re­sents Hun­gar­i­an cul­tur­al tra­di­tions and strength­ens the pos­i­tive image formed of Hun­gar­i­ans. His musi­cal mis­sion is to get the world to know and like the Hun­gar­i­an nation and Hun­gar­i­an cul­ture. Through his con­certs he sets out to make his audi­ence become more open to oth­er nations and cul­tures. This way he has gained count­less fans not only for him­self but also for tra­di­tion­al gyp­sy and clas­si­cal music. It is his inim­itable, spe­cial per­son­al­i­ty that makes his music unique and magic.

With his char­i­ty con­certs he is able to mobilise and join togeth­er thou­sands of peo­ple in spite of ide­o­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal divides. Invit­ing music-lover Hun­gar­i­ans to assume social respon­si­bil­i­ty is an ini­tia­tive with­out prece­dent. This explains why he is called the Vio­lin­ist of Love by both musi­cians and his audience.

Vio­lin­ist vir­tu­oso Zoltán Mága has giv­en con­certs in near­ly one hun­dred coun­tries on five con­ti­nents, play­ing for kings, heads of state, church dig­ni­taries and world-famous stars. He has enchant­ed with his play Pope Bene­dict XVI, King Charles of the the British throne, Mohammed VI, the king of Moroc­co, Kon­stan­tin II, the for­mer king of Greece, the Oscar-win­ning Amer­i­can actor Robert de Niro, and also actress Salma Hayek. 

He has worked togeth­er with numer­ous world-renowned musi­cians, among oth­ers Didi­er Lock­wood, Stephan Grap­pel­li and Richard Clayderman.

Among his count­less tele­vi­sion appear­ances, the Christ­mas con­cert that he gave in the Hun­gar­i­an Nation­al Opera House in 2002 stands out as a beau­ti­ful expe­ri­ence that was enjoyed by view­ers in 22 countries.

PBS sta­tions car­ried it here in the USA, Zoltán Mága’s aim is to enchant mil­lions of peo­ple in his con­certs and enable all age groups to expe­ri­ence the beau­ty of clas­si­cal, pop and folk music, the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of Hun­gar­i­an musi­cal culture.

The artist’s tours on five continents

Zoltán Mága start­ed his for­mal edu­ca­tion in the Tal­en­tum (Tal­ent) Inter­na­tion­al Art School of Dance and Music. In 1997 he earned a per­form­ing artist diplo­ma in the folk music sec­tion, and he took over his diplo­ma from vio­lin­ist Mik­lós Szen­the­lyi, a Kos­suth Award lau­re­ate (the high­est rank­ing cul­tur­al award in Hungary).

As the lead vio­lin­ist of the inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned Rajkó Orches­tra, which was the first impor­tant stage in his career, he earned fame for his beloved home coun­try in almost all cap­i­tals of Europe as well as in the US and the Far East. Then he toured around the oth­er part of the world with the Budapest Gyp­sy Orches­tra, which was found­ed by him, and gave huge­ly suc­cess­ful con­certs everywhere.

It was the most glam­orous revue the­atre with a pres­ti­gious past on the Budapest Broad­way, the Moulin Rouge, that played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the cre­ation of his spe­cial, instant­ly rec­og­niz­able style. Here he was able to realise his old dream: he estab­lished the crossover style in Hun­gary. After his first suc­cess­ful con­cert he became the leader of the orches­tra, and not very much lat­er, the artis­tic direc­tor, the direc­tor and the pro­duc­er of show programmes.

Zoltán Mága is equal­ly pop­u­lar with the mem­bers of his pro­fes­sion and his audi­ence. In spite of his young age he has a huge num­ber of fans, rang­ing from chil­dren to the old­er gen­er­a­tion. He is a role mod­el for chil­dren and brings plea­sure to elder­ly people’s lives.

Char­i­ty activ­i­ty by the ‘Vio­lin­ist of Love’

The vio­lin­ist vir­tu­oso con­sid­ers it very impor­tant to give, to donate. His art came unfor­get­tably entwined with his char­i­ty activ­i­ty. He does not feel his life com­plete with­out it. This is why he has launched numer­ous indi­vid­ual char­i­ty actions. In Decem­ber 2006 he organ­ised and gave a con­cert enti­tled “Advent musi­cal prayer in the hon­our of Fer­enc Puskás and the Hun­gar­i­an Alzheimer’s dis­ease patients” in Mátyás Church in Budapest with inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned guest stars. In Jan­u­ary 2007 he gave a huge­ly suc­cess­ful con­cert in the ban­quet hall of Fer­enc Liszt Acad­e­my of Music, the rev­enue of which was used for pur­chas­ing life-sav­ing appli­ances for the Hun­gar­i­an Nation­al Ambu­lance Ser­vice. In Decem­ber 2007 he gave a Christ­mas char­i­ty con­cert in the Dome Hall of the Par­lia­ment to sup­port the treat­ment of sick chil­dren. He reg­u­lar­ly invites pen­sion­ers to his con­certs and gives help to dis­ad­van­taged chil­dren. Sev­er­al of his mas­ter vio­lins have been sold at char­i­ty con­certs and auc­tions. The rev­enues are always offered for noble purposes.

The Vio­lin­ist of Love car­ries music even into the most remote cor­ners of his home­land. Besides his musi­cal activ­i­ty he has organ­ised char­i­ty cam­paigns for the erad­i­ca­tion of pover­ty many times.  His vio­lin has already been played for the cre­ation of work­places, social peace, flood vic­tims as well as hos­pi­tals, peo­ple in need, rel­a­tives of the police­men and sol­diers who died a hero’s death, the poor, the orphans, large fam­i­lies, sick peo­ple and chil­dren, com­mu­ni­ties and fam­i­lies in dif­fi­cul­ty. There have been count­less occa­sions when a help­ing hand was lent to church­es, insti­tu­tions, schools, young peo­ple wish­ing to study, hopes of the future.

Zoltán Mága’s life path and career can serve as guid­ance to many young peo­ple start­ing out from a dis­ad­van­taged background. 

The musician’s cre­do is that the key to inte­gra­tion is learn­ing in the first place, and the knowl­edge thus gained is the future. Knowl­edge brings pres­tige, val­ue, recog­ni­tion and hon­esty to life. He thinks that this is the only road that leads to real inte­gra­tion and social peace. His life path is the proof that regard­less of your skin colour, ori­gin, reli­gion or denom­i­na­tion­al affil­i­a­tion, if you real­ly want to break out of pover­ty you can achieve it with learn­ing, dili­gence and hon­est work to become a suc­cess­ful, hon­oured and appre­ci­at­ed mem­ber of your country.

He set a per­son­al exam­ple when he obtained a degree at the Art Fac­ul­ty of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pécs.

With his pub­lic role in soci­ety and his social mes­sages he draws atten­tion to the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion and the nur­tur­ing of talents. 

100 Char­i­ty Con­certs in Churches

In August 2009 Zoltán Mága launched a series of char­i­ty con­certs in St. Stephen Basil­i­ca in Budapest, which were enti­tled ’100 Church Con­certs’ and earned acclaim even from Pope Bene­dict XVI. It was a unique ini­tia­tive by the vio­lin­ist in the spir­it of cre­at­ing uni­ty in Hun­gary. With these con­cert series and the pro­grammes built around them his aim was to pro­vide help to his dis­ad­van­taged fel­low beings and those in dif­fi­cul­ty both with­in Hun­gary and beyond its bor­ders. The majes­tic open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was hon­oured by the pres­ence of the high­est rank­ing reli­gious dig­ni­ty of Hun­gary, Car­di­nal Dr Péter Erdő, Arch­bish­op of Eszter­gom-Budapest, Pri­mate of Hun­gary, Pres­i­dent of the Hun­gar­i­an Catholic Bish­ops Con­fer­ence, Pres­i­dent of the CCEE (Coun­cil of Bish­ops Con­fer­ences of Europe).

At the hun­dredth con­cert more than ten thou­sand peo­ple gave a stand­ing ova­tion in the Basil­i­ca, but these ele­vat­ing min­utes were shared also by sev­er­al thou­sands of peo­ple in the church­es of larg­er and small­er towns and vil­lages of Hun­gary. The Vio­lin­ist of Love also encour­aged peo­ple to join forces at events held in cathe­drals, catholic, reformed and evan­gel­i­cal church­es as well as syn­a­gogues. The vio­lin­ist has accom­plished his mis­sion suc­cess­ful­ly. He has invit­ed and gath­ered peo­ple from the widest pos­si­ble spheres of soci­ety, walks of life, so he built a bridge between dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try, dif­fer­ent social groups, between human beings and human beings.

The two years of the 100 Church Con­certs have proved that in Hun­gary hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple are able to join forces, give help for noble pur­pos­es in the spir­it of fra­ter­nal love. He gave the dona­tions of more than 100 mil­lion forints to his dis­ad­van­taged Hun­gar­i­an com­pa­tri­ots and those in need.

 In recog­ni­tion of his artis­tic and char­i­ty mis­sion Zoltán Mága was invit­ed to the Vat­i­can in Sep­tem­ber 2011. He was received by Pope Bene­dict XVI. The vio­lin­ist played a Hun­gar­i­an folk song in hon­our of the Holy Father. Zoltán Mága hand­ed over a vio­lin to His Holi­ness as a gift on behalf of the entire Hun­gar­i­an nation.

Zoltán Mága Show

In 2011 the Mága Show was broad­cast at peak view­ing time on the chan­nel of the nation, Duna Tele­vi­sion. The large-scale enter­tain­ment show offered pro­duc­tions from the most promi­nent Hun­gar­i­an per­form­ing artists of both clas­si­cal and pop music. They were accom­pa­nied live by the Pri­mar­ius Sym­phon­ic Orches­tra in each of the per­for­mances. Apart from the musi­cal pro­duc­tions the show also fea­tured exclu­sive inter­views with Hun­gar­i­an and inter­na­tion­al starts and pub­lic fig­ures. The six-part pro­gramme, which has attract­ed the largest num­ber of audi­ence in the his­to­ry of Duna Tele­vi­sion, has been repeat­ed sev­er­al times at the view­ers’ request. 

Vio­lin Magic

Inspired by the suc­cess of the 100 Church Con­certs, the vio­lin vir­tu­oso announced a new 100-sta­tion series of con­certs in 2012 under the title of ‘Vio­lin Mag­ic’. This time he coop­er­at­ed with the Budapest Operetta The­atre and world-famous Hun­gar­i­an artists with the aim to spread, make pop­u­lar and cher­ish Hun­gar­i­an music culture.

This time the venues of the con­cert series are not church­es but the­atres, sport halls, cul­tur­al cen­tres and open-air events. He draws atten­tion to the beau­ty of Hun­gar­i­an clas­si­cal, pop and folk music, thus the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of Hun­gar­i­an music cul­ture, the diver­si­ty and beau­ty of Hun­gary, by inter­pret­ing not only the well-known or less­er known works of the most famous Hun­gar­i­an com­posers, includ­ing Fer­enc Liszt, Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodá­ly,  Fer­enc Erkel but also those com­posed by Jenő Hubay, Ede Reményi, Imre Kálmán, Fer­enc Lehár or Béla Sza­kc­si Lakatos.

Budapest New Year’s Day Concert

Zoltán Mága was again led by the aim of cre­at­ing a tra­di­tion when he launched the Budapest New Year’s Day Con­cert on 1^st Jan­u­ary 2009. 12 thou­sand spec­ta­tors stood up to applaud and cheer the artist in the Papp Lás­zló Budapest Sport Are­na. In recent years, besides the audi­ence of the ful­ly packed Are­na, sev­er­al mil­lion view­ers have become part of the grandiose event both with­in and beyond the bor­ders of Hun­gary due to the broad­casts of pub­lic and com­mer­cial tele­vi­sion chan­nels. He suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing about a tra­di­tion-mak­ing event that has become a high­ly pres­ti­gious con­cert in Europe, earn­ing inter­na­tion­al, artis­tic and touris­tic acclaim for Hungary.

Over the past five years in addi­tion to Kos­suth Award win­ning and world-famous artists also the ‘Actors of the Hun­gar­i­an nation’ and celebri­ties of Hun­gar­i­an pop music have appeared on the stage of the Budapest New Year Day’s Con­certs. These con­certs of the Hun­gar­i­an cap­i­tal have gained inter­na­tion­al fame dur­ing the past years. Not only Hun­gar­i­an spec­ta­tors con­tributed to the full-house per­for­mances in the Are­na but music lovers came also from the Unit­ed States, Aus­tralia, Israel and many coun­tries of Europe. The con­certs of the past five years were also record­ed on CDs and DVDs, all of which became ‘gold records’ as soon as they came out.