Életfa Hungarian Folk Ensemble

Életfa Hungarian folk band plays authentic folk music of the Hungarians living in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and New Jersey. The group gets its power and drive from being true to the village traditions and respecting the stylistic differences between the different villages.

The group is intimately tied to dance, and most of the musicians are outstanding dancers (except for Raul), and Hungarian dancers have often been known to travel many hundreds of miles just to get their dancing fix of Életfa. The group regularly travels around North America, and has loyal followings in Louisiana, Ontario, New York, Ohio, California and of course New Jersey.

The basic setup of the group is violins, kontras (a Hungarian 3-string viola that functions like a rhythmic guitar) and bass. The group also performs with cimbalom (the elaborate Hungarian hammered dulcimer), the utogardon (a percussive cello-thing from eastern Transylvania), the trumpet-violin and the hurdy-gurdy. The group rarely plays with drums (except when performing the dances from Moldavia).

The group has studied, performed, and occasionally toured with almost all the great Hungarian bands and musicians from Hungary and Transylvania. They play at festival, and at venues in New York as diverse as the Sidewalk Café in the East Village to Town Hall, and they regularly run dance workshops/parties.