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| 09-12-2003 | Previous edition: 09-11-2003 |
        
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Printer-friendly version Renowned violinist will play contemporary musicBy Julie GlaserAssistant Features Editor Barnabás Kelemen is a renowned violinist of many prestigious honors, and he enjoys a good bungee rocket experience when he can find one. "It's like bungee jumping but it's not; it's much more scary," Kelemen said of the bungee contraption he rode in South Africa that catapults its riders into the air. "It was really fun," he said. The 25 year-old Kelemen has been traveling the globe since the age of 12, playing the violin. After winning top prizes at several international competitions including the prestigious International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Kelemen is now able to plan his own tours. The last time he was in South Africa, he made sure he had a few days to take in some of the beauty and bungee-ing of South Africa with his wife, Katalin Kokas, also a renowned violinist. "We went on a safari and scuba diving under the water with sharks," Kelemen said. No doubt Kelemen has already experienced a lot of life at his young age, but he doesn't take that for granted. He appreciates the beauty and culture of the places he has traveled and still the most important thing he hopes for is that people enjoy his music. "The most important thing is that they go home and think back about the performance," Kelemen said of his audiences. He hopes his music inspires people to enjoy classical music in a way they haven't before. And he doesn't mind it if people come to see him again. This is his second performance at Purdue, after all. He played a very well-received performance here last year for which he got four standing ovations. For Friday's performance, he will play music by contemporary Hungarian composer Bartók. He plays on the 1683 Stradivarius violin formerly owned by Josef Gingold, the founder of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. The winner of the competition is given the violin to play for four years. The piece by Bartók that Kelemen will play is very technically and musically complex, which he says can be hard to understand the first time it is heard. "But I will do my best to help people understand it," he said. Kelemen said he prefers to play for audiences who aren't all musicians, an audience he will more than likely find at Purdue. "Music isn't written for musicians," he said. "It is written for music lovers who enjoy it only for listening." Kelemen, however, never had the option of being just a music lover. He was born a musician into a family of musicians in Budapest, Hungary. Budapest is still his favorite place in the world despite his far travels. His mother played the harpsichord and his father was a cellist and leader of an orchestra in Budapest. But the music in his family didn't begin with his parents. His grandfather was a famous gypsy violinist in the '30s. "I got to know him from recordings and movies," Kelemen said. "It was exciting to get to know him. He was a grand, special man, an old-style, sensitive, fine musician." Kelemen began playing the violin at the age of 6. He has studied with many masters of the instrument and has won top prizes at several international competitions such as the Elisabeth, Kuhmo, Mozart and Szigeti competitions. He hopes to have a long career and he "hopes to play only good concerts" in his career. He thinks that maybe one day in 10 or 15 years he'll play with a string quartet because the best violin music is written for quartets, that he is sure of. He also enjoys teaching the art of violin playing to others. He has already taught some masters classes, and maybe one day he will be able to teach his art to his now three month-old daughter, Hannah. Glen Kwok, the executive director of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, said he thinks people should take advantage and see Kelemen in concert at the beginning of what Kwok thinks will be a major, major career. "I think one of the exciting things bout Barnabás playing on a college campus is that college kids get to watch someone who is not much older than they are performing at a professional level," Kwok said. "He is very exciting musically and a fabulous, charismatic person with a lot of energy. Wherever he goes, people enjoy seeing him play as much as they enjoy meeting him." n Tickets for Barnabás Kelemen are $15 for students and $25 for the general public and are available through the Purdue Box Offices. Printer-friendly version |
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