Barnabas Kelemen

Barnabas Kelemen is a Hungarian violinist and teacher born (in Budapest) on June 12, 1978.  He is known for having won the prestigious Indianapolis Violin Competition in 2002.  His repertoire is very extensive and includes Schumann’s concerto and Bruch’s second concerto which are seldom heard live.  Kelemen also plays a great deal of contemporary music.  On May 2, 2013, he premiered (in New York’s Carnegie Hall) a long lost concerto by Mihaly Nador, composed in 1903 (and revised in 1941-42) but never performed.  Reviewers of the performance compared Kelemen to Heifetz.  The audience applauded after each movement of the concerto, which is not typical, especially in the case of more modern works.  Kelemen began studying violin at age six with Valeria Baranyai.  He entered the Franz Liszt Academy at age 11 and studied with Eszter Perenyi.  He graduated in 2001.  He was 23 years old.  By then, he had already won first prize in the Mozart Violin Competition in Salzburg (1999.)  Three years after winning the Indianapolis competition, he began teaching (in 2005) at the same school from which he graduated.  In 2010, he founded (with his violinist wife Katalin Kokas) the Kelemen Quartet.  (Among violinists who married other concert violinists are Olga Kaler, Adele Anthony, Marina Markov, Ruth Posselt, and Elizabeth Gilels.)  The Kelemen Quartet has also received top prizes at chamber music competitions.  In addition, several of Kelemen’s recordings have also received awards from music periodicals and critics.  Interestingly, except for the cellist, the Kelemen Quartet players sometimes switch places with each other – alternating between first violin, second violin, and viola.  Kelemen has taken conducting lessons from Leif Segerstam and has already conducted a few concerts in Europe.  He often appears in the dual role of soloist-conductor with chamber orchestras.  Needless to say, Kelemen has toured the world several times (and continues to do so) as a soloist and with the quartet.  In 2014, he began teaching at the Advanced School for Music and Dance in Cologne, Germany.  Here is a YouTube video of his playing a well-known Mozart sonata.  It shows how different his temperament and style are from a more conventional concert violinist but you be the judge.  After winning the Indianapolis competition, Kelemen played the 1683 Stradivarius (Martinelli Stradivarius) that all Indianapolis competition winners get to use for four years.  (The Martinelli was “restored” in 2014 and is currently being played by Jinjoo Cho)  Kelemen is currently playing a Guarneri (del Gesu) constructed in 1742.