Gabor Magyar (cello) was born in Budapest on December 5, 1914. He was a student at the Franz Liszt Royal School of Music. He studied under Kodaly, Leo Weiner, Antal Frisch, and Jend Kerpely. Before the war he began a career as a soloist and gave the first performance in Hungary of Darius Milhaud's Cello Concerto. After the war, he performed this work again in Caracas, having returned from a German concentration camp.

At the end of the war he resumed his career and played a great deal of music with Casella in Rome. He was offered the Chair of Cello and Chamber Music at the State University of Oklahoma from 1951-56 where he gave a series of concerts and traveled across the United States. In 1956 he abandoned his solo career to become the cellist in the Hungarian String Quartet and remained with the quartet for sixteen years. The Hungarian String Quartet was recognized for their performances and recordings of works of known masters. They were celebrated by the Hungarian Government as world wide ambassadors for the music of Bela Bartok. Mr. Magyar was the recepient of many honors including the Bartok Bela-Pasztory Ditta Award, Bartok Kuratorium 1987; and the Grand Pris du Disque, Paris France. In addition, Gabor Magyar was Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at the University of Illinois from 1972-80.

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