Barnabás Kelemen has established himself as one of the leading and most versatile artists of his generation. He regularly performs at the most prominent concert venues, including the Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Royal Festival Hall, the Palais de Beaux Arts, the Suntory Hall, the Musikverein or the Berlin Philharmony. He is a frequent guest of such eminent ensembles as the BBC Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony, Hannover’s NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra etc.

So far, he has released a total of 23 albums – 19 solo/chamber music and three with his quartet – as well as a double DVD of live performances of Mozart’s complete violin concertos. His album – released in 2019 under the care of Alpha Records – featuring Béla Bartók’s Piano Quintet won its category at the BBC Music Magazine Awards and the Gramophone Award in 2020.
Since 2003 he has been active as a violin and chamber music teacher, giving masterclasses worldwide. Together with Katalin Kokas, he is the founder and artistic director of the Festival Academy Budapest. In 2009 Barnabás Kelemen established the Kelemen Quartet with his wife Katalin Kokas.

Kelemen has achieved outstanding results at world’s greatest contests, including first prizes at both the 1999 Salzburg International Mozart Violin Competition and the 2002 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, the third prize at Brussels’ 2001 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition. His artistry has been recognized with the highest professional and state honors: he has been awarded Liszt, Bartók-Pásztory, Príma and Kossuth Prizes, the London-based Gramophone Award and is the holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary.

Kelemen began studying the violin under Valéria Baranyai. As a student of Eszter Perényi, he graduated from the Liszt Academy of Music in 2001. He was enormously influenced by his later masters as well, Isaac Stern (1994-2001), Ferenc Rados (1993-), György Kurtág (1997-), Zoltán Kocsis (1998-2016) and by the several recordings and movie films of his legendary gypsy grandfather from the 1930’s the ‘prímás’ violinist Pali Pertis. He must thank most his mother, the great harpsichordist Zsuzsa Pertis, who was a student of prof. Isolde Algrim at Vienna Hochschule for becoming such an open-minded artist. He studied 5 years of conducting privately from two idols of the Finnish school, Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula.

He is currently a half time professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest where he coaches chamber music groups at regular masterclasses. He performs on the “ex-Rolla János” Guarneri del Gesú violin of 1737, generously loaned to him by the Hungarian State.