Barnabás Kelemen and Katalin Kokás

Barnabás Kelemen has established himself as one of the leading violinists of his generation, appearing regularly as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician at many of the world's major musical venues and festivals. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, North and South America, South Africa, Japan and Taiwan.

In addition to having performed with all the major orchestras in Hungary, Barnabás has also performed with the Belgian National Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, Holland’s Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Limburg, Arnheim, Lahti, and Saarbrucken Radio symphonies, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Flemish Radio Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra among others. Festival appearances have included Colmar, Cambridge, Delft, Capetown, IMS Prussia Cove, Budapest, Prague, Salzburg and Grand Teton.

He has collaborated with conductors Lorin Maazel, Sir Neville Marriner, Denis Russel-Davies, Eiji Oue, Robert Spano, Zoltán Kocsis, Michael Stern, Péter Eötvös, Tamás Vásáry and Rumon Gamba. Barnabás has performed at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, and New York’s Carnegie Hall where his debut was reviewed as "a dazzling performance" (American Record Guide).

Barnabás has released 11 solo recordings and a double DVD set of the complete works of Mozart for violin and orchestra with the Ferenc Erkel Chamber Orchestra.  His mammoth recording project for Hungaroton which features him as the solo violinist for the complete works of Béla Bartók still is in progress with several works already recorded.

In addition to winning the Gold Medal at the 2002 International Violin Competition of Indianapolis and six of the eight special prize, Barnabas has won prizes at many international competitions including Second Prize at the 1997 Szigeti Competition, First Prizes at the 1999 Mozart Competition in Salzburg and the International Piano Trio Competition in Kuhmo, and Third Prize at the 2001 Queen Elisabeth Competition.
 
In recognition of his talent and achievements, Kelemen received the ‘Rózsavölgyi’ the ’Jelenlét’ and the ‘Franz Liszt’ prizes by the Hungarian Government. In 2003 he was awarded Classical Musician of the Year by Gramophone magazine (Hungary) and his recording of the Brahms Sonatas for Violin and Piano (Hungaroton) with pianist Tamás Vásáry won France’s Diapaison d’Or. His double CD, The Complete Works for Violin and Piano by Franz Liszt, with pianist Gergely Bogányi, won the International Liszt Society’s 2001 Grand Prix du Disque. Recently he received the Award of  the Hungarian State acknowledging his excellent professional work from the President of Hungary.

Barnabás’ repertoire spans from early baroque to contemporary music. He performed the Hungarian premieres of the Ligeti and Schnittke Violin Concertos and gave the Hungarian premiere of Gubajdulina’s and world premiere of Kurtág’s violin pieces.  As a chamber musician, he has appeared with, amongst others, Steven Isserlis, Zoltán Kocsis and Dezső Ránki and performs regularly with Katalin Kokas (violin/viola), Miklós Perényi (cello), Dénes Várjon, Péter Nagy and Gergely Bogányi (piano).

Born in Hungary, Barnabás started his violin studies with noted Hungarian pedagogue Valeria Baranyai at the age of 6. He entered Eszter Perényi’s class at the Franz Liszt Music Academy at the age of 11. In 2001 he received his diploma and was also awarded the Sándor Végh Prize by the Sándor Végh Foundation in Budapest. In addition to his primary teachers, Barnabás has participated in master classes with Isaac Stern, Ferenc Rados, György Kurtág, Igor Ozim, Lorand Fenyves, Dénes Zsigmondy, György Pauk, Sergiu Luca and Thomas Zehetmair.  He has been a Professor of Violin at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest since 2005 and teaches regularly as a guest at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He performs on the 1742 Ex-Kovács Dénes Guarneri del Gesú violin, which he received from the State of Hungary.

An international prizewinning violinist, Katalin Kokás (“Kati”)won first prizes at the 1999 Carl Flesch International Violin Competition, the 2002 Joseph Szigeti International Violin Competition and the 1994 Usti nad Orlici International Violin Competition in the Czech Republic.  She also won the Concerto Competition at the Toronto Conservatory while studying there in 1996 and the Bartók and Martinů Competitions at the Summer Academy in Semmering, Austria in 1997 and 1998. 

Equally adept at the violin and the viola, Kokás has collaborated with musicians such as Zoltán Kocsis, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Philipp Cassard, Péter Nagy, Thorlief Thedeen, Michael Stern, the Chilingirian Quartet and János Rolla.  She has soloed with most of the Hungarian orchestras including the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra and with the symphony orchestras of Pozńan, Taiwan, Košice, Bratislava, Johannesburg, and Durban.

Kokás has received engagements in many of the important concert venues throughout Europe, South Africa and the US including Paris’ Louvre Auditorium and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City.  She has also been invited to perform at music festivals such as Lockenhaus, Jerusalem, Delft, Prussia-Cove, Seville, and the Budapest Spring Festival. 

Kokás was honored to play the very first violin concerto in the new National Concert Hall at the Palace of Arts in Budapest.  She performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Zoltan Kocsis and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra.  She has released 4 CDs on the Hungaroton and BMC labels.  Kokás is featured in the double live DVD of Mozart’s Complete Works for Violin and Orchestra with Barnabás Kelemen and the Ferenc Erkel Chamber Orchestra performing the viola in the Sinfonia Concertante and violin in the C Major Concertone for Two Violins.  She was also engaged to record for Hungaroton’s new Bartók Series, the 44 Duos for Two Violins with Barnabás Kelemen; the second violin solos of the Divertimento; and the Music for Strings, Percussions and Celesta under the baton of Zoltán Kocsis.
 
Kokás was born in 1978 in Pecs, Hungary and began to play the violin at the age of 5.  Six years later she attended the preliminary class of the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest and studied with Ferenc Halász and Dénes Kovács.  At age 16 she was awarded a full scholarship to the Toronto Royal Conservatory where she studied with Lóránd Fenyves. From 1997 on, she worked with Eszter Perenyi at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. She has participated in masterclasses by Ferenc Rados, György Kurtág, György Pauk, Dénes Zsigmondy, Igor Ozim, Tibor Varga, Endre Wolf, Jaime Laredo and Leon Fleisher.  She was the recipient of the Ferenc Halasz Prize in 2004 and the Annie Fischer Scholarship in 2005.  Currently she is an Assistant Professor at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest.

Katalin Kokás performs on a violin made by Januarius Gagliano (1771) and a viola by Luigi Fabris (1863).

On a personal note...

Barnabás has had a special relationship with Columbus ever since his debut performances immediately following his victory in Indianapolis.  Unbelievably the connection to Columbus existed even before his first appearance.  His wife Katalin’s grandmother has been lifelong friends with the Julius Perr family in Hungary and so every visit to Columbus is especially meaningful.  Barnabás and Katalin met each other as students at the Liszt Academy and have been friends since age 11.  They are not only companions in life but musically as well, inspiring each other and performing regularly together.  They have two beautiful children Hanna, born in 2003 and Gáspár, born March 3, 2008.  Even with two musical parents, Hanna’s early love is ballet.