The Kilenyi Family

This guide is an introduction to research on former Florida State University professor of piano Edward Kilenyi, Jr. (1910-2000) and members of his immediate family, materials relating to whom are preserved in the Edward Kilenyi Archive of the Warren D. Allen Music Library.  After a European concert career and a tour of duty in World War II, Kilenyi settled in Tallahasse in 1953, and remained here for the rest of his life.  The archive contains material concerning the life and career of Edward, Jr., and to a lesser extent his father, Edward, Sr., and his uncle Julio.

Edward Kilenyi, Sr. (1884-1968) was one of three Hungarian-born brothers, two of whom eventually settled in the United States.  He was a violinist, composer, and teacher who worked extensively in the theater and film world, providing composition, music direction, and sound synchronization services from the silent film era until the early 1950s.  In that capacity he worked for the Sam Fox Publishing Company and, after moving to California in the 1930s, with Twentieth-Century Fox.

Julio Kilenyi (1885-1959) was a sculptor who traveled to Argentina before settling in the United States.  Julio was known primarily as a creator of plaques and medals.  Although he was not a musician, he was an active member of the Bruckner Society of America.

The third brother, Albert Kilenyi (b. 1887?), about whom little is known, was a physician and may have remained in Arad, formerly part of the Kingdom of Hungary but ceded to Romania after World War I.

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