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Erno Kallai, first prize winner of the 11th Carl Flesch International Violin Competition, established himeself one of the most exciting young Hungarian violinst today.

Born in 1986 in Budapest, began to play the violin at the age of 7 in a local music school. At 12 he had been admitted to the Exceptionaly Talented Children's class of the Franz Liszt University of Music and studied with Andras Csontha and Eszter Perenyi. In 2006 he moved to the United States to study with Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School in New York.

Mr. Kallai has played for Hungarian radio and Television programs, and has
performed in Hungary, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S. During 2003, 2004 and 2005 he participated in the Perlman Music Program in New York, Shelter Island and in Sarasota, Florida. He took part for several years in the Semmering Music festival in Austria. In 2008 he appeared on Bob Sherman's "Young Artists' Showcase" on WQXR.

Mr. Kallai has won numerous awards and prizes, including the 1st prize and Special Prize at the Zathureczky Violin Competition in 1998 and 2003, awards from the Semmering Music Festival in 2004, which included the best interpretaion of a work by Kodaly, and the best interpretation of a Viennese Classic work with his performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto No.5, scholarship at the 8th Pablo de Sarasate International Violin Competition in 2005, Valerie Beth Schwartz Career Grant from Salone de Virtuosi in 2007, 1st prize at the 11th Carl Flesch International Violin Competition, and many more.

Mr. Kallai continues his studies at The Juilliard School since 2006 as a full scholarship student.

Mr. 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.