Mr. Balogh’s Opus

By Linda Hundhammer

The Lake Oswego Review, Oct 21, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Lajos Balogh will conduct the Portland Festival Symphony at Lake Oswego’s Foothills Park on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 4 p.m.

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You’ve seen him around Lake Oswego. You may recognize him from the promotional posters, the soccer field (he plays three times a week), or the fundraising beat, but you feel like you know him. Lajos Balogh (pronounce Lah-yosh Ball-og), 77, is everywhere.

He conducts some of the Portland areas’ most successful group orchestras including the Marylhurst Symphony, the Portland Festival Symphony and the Metropolitan Youth Symphony. Plus, he was Principal Violin II for the Oregon Symphony for 27 years from 1970 to 1997.

“I enjoy, so much, working with all types of musicians – community players, professionals and youth,” says Balogh. “It is wonderful.”

Home in Hungary

Balogh was born into a musical family in l931 in Beled, Hungary. He attended the Liszt Academy of Music until the Hungarian Revolution in l956. As the Soviets invaded Budapest, Balogh was one of 200,000 refugees to safely flee his country, leaving everything behind to start again in West Germany. His family that remained ended up in refugee camps in Hungary during the Soviet occupation.

In l967, he reunited with his family here in Portland, where his brother was working as a mathematics professor at the University of Portland.

Bringing the music to Portland

With the support of a government fellowship, Balogh was hired at Marylhurst University in 1967 to do what he does best – teach and conduct classical music. He now has been a permanent faculty member and the conductor of the Marylhurst Symphony for more than 41 years.

In l974, he saw a need for classical instruction in the younger ages. He started the Metropolitan Youth Symphony with 16 kids from Lake Oswego and West Linn.

The youth symphony now has more than 500 kids participating in three symphony orchestras, three symphonic bands, two string ensembles, a flute choir and two jazz ensembles.

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