She was born into a classical musical family. Her mother is a remedial school teacher, who plays the piano very well. Her father, Ferenc Illényi – Katica’s first teacher – played in the Hungarian State Opera House. He decided to bring up all four of his children to become musicians. Since the age of 3, hours of practice was a natural thing for Katica and her three siblings; Ferenc, Anikó and Csaba.
At the age of 14 she was admitted to the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, to the class of “special talents”. Her teacher was Dénes Kovács. She graduated at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music. During university (Franz Liszt Academy of Music), she already played in the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera and Erkel Theatre. In 1991 she obtained her master’s degree in violin at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music.
As a newly graduated violinist, she felt that the boundaries of classical music were too tight. She wanted to play with her whole being. Therefore, she decided that besides playing the violin, she will also sing and dance. She started to attend phonation classes and her voice became her second instrument. Beside all of that she also learned acting, and tap dancing. Very unusual from a violinist, but in her early years she played the main roles in plays and musicals in which of course the violin played a very important part.
Meanwhile, she started to get acquainted with the “lighter” genre of music such as jazz, swing. She searched for the style specialties in world music, which she didn’t come across in classical music.
From 1996 to 2002, she was the singer and violinist of the Budapest Klezmer Band.
1999 was a turning point in her life, when she was invited to perform in solo in different television shows. Since then, she gives self-organized concerts, one-woman shows each year, always with a new repertoire, mixing classical pieces, jazz and easy listening music. At her concerts, gems of classical music, movie soundtracks, well known jazz and Broadway melodies can be heard.
Next to Bach, Csajkovszkij, Paganini, Dvořák, Gershwin, Morricone, Michel Legrand and John Williams, Hungarian composers Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Franz Liszt and Leó Weiner pieces are played also.
She introduced a mysterious instrument, called Theremin to her audience on the 4th of January 2014. at her New Year’s Eve concert which took place at The Palace of Arts Béla Bartók Concert Hall.
The Theremin is a mysterious instrument, because it doesn’t need to be touched while playing.
Out of the few Theremin players in the world, Katica is the only Hungarian artist who plays this instrument in concert.
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teremin
Next to classical music, she is committed to high quality popular music. At her concerts, she sings, plays the violin, the theremin and she also tap-dances. With entertaining anecdotes, she pilots her audience from one music genre to an other. Entertainment, interactive communication with the audience are her prime elements. Her goal is to acquainting quality music with the listeners.
„I believe it’s not true that people don’t like classical music, they just don’t know it.“
Her versatile performances prove that there is interoperability between the different genres of music and it builds a bridge between the different cultures.
Her positive personality, professional competence, work and reputation allows her to spread Hungarian composer‘s music, classical music, sophisticated jazz and quality popular music to broad social layers.
Her purpose is to enhance the long-established reputation of the Hungarian musical culture internationally.
She was chosen to be one of the artists to represent Hungarian culture worldwide.
Since 2014, Member of the Music Department of the Hungarian Academy of Arts.
