He has captured the interest of the music world with premiers of works by Kurtág, Ligeti, Schnittke, Gubajdulina, Steve Reich and Ryan Wigglesworth and also with his complete recordings of works for violin by Bartók. His 17 solo recordings won major awards in England, France, Belgium, Germany and Hungary.

Barnabás Kelemen is a returning soloist in major venues like in the Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, The Concertgebouw, Suntory Hall, Bozar, Berlin Philharmony and worked with conductors such as: L. Maazel, Sir N. Marriner, V. Jurowski, M. Janowski, M. Stern, K. Urbanski, P. Eötvös, I. Fischer and Z. Kocsis.

He got the Kossuth Prize, the Gramophone Award, and won top prizes at competitions from Salzburg through Brussels to Indianapolis.

Founding leader of the Kelemen Quartet, they won the Melbourne, the Beijing and the Paolo Borciani competitions and they play at top festivals and concert halls from Australia through the US to Europe.

His biggest musical influence apart from his mother were his teachers: Eszter Perényi, Isaac Stern, Ferenc Rados and Zoltán Kocsis and his grandfather, one of the most famous gypsy ‘prímás’s of the 20th century, Pali Pertis.

He is a professor at universities like the F. Liszt Academy in Budapest and at the Cologne University and he plays on the 1742 “Ex-Dénes Kovács” Guarneri violin on loan from the state of Hungary.