Istavan Anhalt was born in Budapest, Hungary, where he studied composition with Kodály at the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music (1937-1941). He spent World War II in a forced-labor unit of the Hungarian army from which he later escaped and went into hiding. After the war, he continued studying piano and composition in Paris, and immigrated to Canada in 1949. There, he taught at McGill University (1949-1971) and later at Queens University (1971-1984). As a composer, Anhalt wrote orchestral, chamber, vocal, choral, and opera music. Some of his works were influenced by Jewish themes, such as Traces which is influenced by the Kabbalah, and Tents of Abraham.
Biography in print: Elliott, Robin, and Gordon Ernest Smith. 2001. Istvan Anhalt pathways and memory. Montreal, Que: McGill-Queen's University Press.