One of the most important artists of his generation in Hungary, Kristóf Baráti performs regularly in his native country with all the major Hungarian orchestras, in recital and chamber music, and in 2014 he was awarded Hungary’s highest cultural award, the Kossuth Prize, following in the footsteps of András Schiff, György Ligeti and Iván Fischer amongst others.
Across the rest of the world Baráti is gaining recognition for the extraordinary quality of his musicianship. He enjoys a particularly close relationship with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra: earlier this year Gergiev invited him to appear as soloist in Russia alongside Kavakos, Trifonov and others in the Prokofiev celebrations and he has since returned for performances of the Stravinsky and Beethoven Concerti. In September he is Gergiev’s violin soloist in the Prokofiev concerti in London, again as part of the Prokofiev 125th birthday celebrations, then touring with the orchestra and Gergiev to Shanghai in October.
Elsewhere Baráti has played with many major orchestras including the Budapest Festival, Royal Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, NHK Symphony, WDR Symphony orchestras and with conductors such as Gergiev, Masur, Janowski, Dutoit, Bělohlávek, Saraste, Pletnev, Varga, Iván Fischer, Hrůša, Manze and Temirkanov. Earlier in 2016 he returned to NDR Hannover with Andrew Manze, and made his debut at London’s Southbank Centre with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Orosco-Estrada, and he looks forward to performing with the London Philharmonic again in September on tour in Hungary with Vladimir Jurowski. Elsewhere he looks forward to returning to the NHK Symphony in Tokyo and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra.
A regular recital and chamber music player, Baráti performs all over the globe with partners such as Richard Goode, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Mischa Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Zoltán Kocsis and Kim Kashkashian. Recent highlights include performances in Paris, Washington, Chicago and New York. In July he made a sensational debut at the Verbier Festival performing the complete solo Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, with Medici filming the Sonatas.
Baráti’s discography includes the complete Bach solo Sonatas and Partitas, Ysaÿe solo sonatas, the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with Klára Würtz, as well concerti by Mozart, Korngold and Paganini, and upcoming releases include sonatas by Ravel, Fauré and Franck. Reviewing his latest release of encores titled “The Lady of Harmsworth”, Gramophone magazine said “for those who like to hear the violin played at its sweet and acrobatic best, then Barati is out of the top drawer”.
Born into a family of musicians, Baráti spent much of his childhood in Venezuela, where he played as soloist with many of the country’s leading orchestras, returning to Budapest to study at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. He was later mentored by Eduard Wulfson who was himself a student of Milstein and Menuhin. Baráti has won many major prizes including the third prize and audience prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1997 when he was the competition’s youngest competitor. When he is not playing the violin he is a keen photographer and an avid chess player, proud to have almost drawn in a match against Vladimir Kramnik, World Chess Champion 2000-2007. Passionate about flying, Barati is also a keen aeroplane pilot and one day he hopes to own his own plane.
Baráti plays the 1703 “Lady Harmsworth” made by Antonio Stradivarius, kindly offered by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.