Kristóf Baráti was born in Budapest, Hungary, but a large part of his childhood was spent in Venezuela. He began his violin studies at the age of five and already from the age of eight he made his first solo performances with the leading Venezuelan orchestras.

At the age of eleven he was invited to Montpellier to give a recital at the prestigious Festival de Radio France. His studies continued in Budapest with Miklós Szenthelyi and Vilmos Tátrai at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. During this period he won first prize at the Lipizer Competition in Italy and second prize in the Long-Thibaud Competition in Paris.

In 1997 his career takes a new turn after winning third prize and the audience prize of the highly prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, being the youngest finalist. After this success he redefines his violin technique with Eduard Wulfson, whose knowledge was influenced by great violinists of the 20th century such as Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Henryk Szeryng.

In 2010 Baráti won the highly praised Paganini Competition in Moscow, considered as the „Oscar Prize” of violinists. Kristóf Baráti performs in important concert halls around the world with major orchestras (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Russian National Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre, Budapest Festival Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, NHK Orchestra Tokyo, WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne, Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, etc.) and conductors (Kurt Masur, Marek Janowski, Charles Dutoit, Jiri Belohlavek, Yuri Bashmet, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Zoltán Kocsis, Mikhail Pletnov, Gilbert Varga, Iván Fischer, Yuri Temirkanov, Eiji Oue, Pinchas Steinberg, etc.). His chamber music partners include Richard Goode, Enrico Pace, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Misha Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Klára Würtz, Miklós Perényi, Dénes Várjon, Zoltán Kocsis, Ning Feng, Kim Kashkashian, to mention just a few.

In 2009 and 2010 he recorded the first two Paganini concertos and Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo violin for the Berlin Classics label. His recording of the Beethoven violin-piano sonatas with Klára Würtz was released by Brilliant Classics in 2012, the recording of Ysaye's solo sonatas is 2013, that of the three Brahms violin sonatas in 2014.

Kristóf Baráti has got numerous awards, including the Kossuth Prize, the most prestigious award of his native Hungary in the domain of culture. He plays the 1703 "Lady Harmsworth" made by Antonio Stradivarius, kindly offered by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.