Born in Vidin, NW Bulgaria, began singing and playing the accordion at the age of four and received his first gold medal as a singer in 1981 at the Koprivshtitsa Festival. He studied music in Vidin and Pleven and graduated from the Academy of Music and Dance in Plovdiv in 1998 majoring in Tambura and Music Education. He received a Master's Degree in Folklore in 2003 from the University of Oregon, where he is now a Ph.D. student in Music Theory. Kalin has performed extensively in Bulgaria and abroad, recorded with the Bulgarian National Radio, and toured the U.S. in 2003 and 2005 with the legendary Ivo Papasov and Yuri Yunakov.
