The Eastern Boundary Quartet (USA, HU)

The quartet was formed in 2007, its members are Balázs Bágyi, Mihály Borbély, Michael Jefry Stevens and Joe Fonda.

Balázs Bágyi – drums. Qualified with the grade of excellent at the jazz department of the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy, where amongst his teachers were Imre Kőszegi, Iván Nesztor and Béla Zsoldos, Bágyi is the director of the Dr. Gyula Lauschmann Jazz Conservatory in Székesfehérvár, teacher at the Hang-Szín-Tér Art School and the presidency member of the Hungarian Jazz Federation and the Central-European representative of the Ayotte drums, Canada. He has worked together with William Parker, Hamid Drake and Rob Brown as well as István Grencsó, Ferenc Kovács, Viktor Tóth and Mátyás Szandai. He has also performed with Eldad Tarmu, Chuck Jennings, Arthur Kell, Geoff Warren, Marcello Sebastiani and Pedro Negrescu, among many others. His creative activity expands the fields of theatrical music, mainstream jazz, world music and avantgarde jazz.

Mihály Borbély – saxophone. Borbély studied classical clarinet and jazz saxophone at Béla Bartók Conservatory and Ferenc Liszt Music Academy in Budapest. Through his career in addition to his original instruments (clarinet and alto saxophone) he has specialized in playing unusual wind instruments (tárogató, folk flutes, kaval, dvojnice, fujara, ocarina, bombard, zurna) as well as soprano and tenor saxophone. He is one of the founding members of the famous Vujicsics folk group, and he is equally active participant – either as a leader or as a soloist – of various world music, jazz and contemporary music groups (Mihály Borbély Quartet, Balkan Jazz Project, Quartet B, Borbély-Dresch Quartet). He is also the member of various line-ups (Binder–Borbély Duo, Eastern Boundary Quartet, Attila László Quintet, Kálmán Oláh Sextet).

Michael Jefry Stevens and Joe Fonda – see The Fonda/Stevens Group for the information about these two artists.