Katalin Komlós studied musicology at the Academy of Music in Budapest under the guidance of professors Bence Szabolcsi, Dénes Bartha, Lajos Bárdos, and Zoltán Gárdonyi. Between 1980 and 1983 she obtained her PhD from Cornell University and studied fortepiano with professors James Webster, Neal Zaslaw and Malcolm Bilson.
A specialist in fortepiano playing, she has been performing for 30 years in Hungary and abroad. Alongside her regular partner Mária Zádori, she has performed with Malcolm Bilson, György Vashegyi and the Orfeo Orchestra, Miklós Spányi and Anna Korondi, among others.
In addition to Hungary, she has given concerts, courses, and talks in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, England, Ireland and the United States of America.
In addition to her performing activities, she is also active as a lecturer and researcher. Her main research interests are eighteenth-century keyboard music, the history of eighteenth-century keyboard instruments and performance practice.
Her academic publications appear mainly in English in leading musicological journals and edited volumes. Her book Fortepianos and Their Music was published by Oxford University Press in 1995, followed ten years later by a Hungarian edition.
Her volume, Tanulmányok a 18. századi zene történetéből [Studies in the History of 18th Century Music], was published by Rózsavölgyi and Partners in 2015.
She has lectured at the Kodály Institute, Boston (USA), the Hochschule für Musik, Detmold, Germany, and held masterclasses at Trinity College, Dublin, in 2002, and the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italia, Lugano, Italy. For many years she was Head of the Department of Music Theory at the Liszt Academy, and is currently Professor Emeritus of the institution.
She has won numerous prizes: the Erkel Prize, Grout Memorial Prize (USA), Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, Grand Prize for Musical Composers - National Association of Hungarian Creative Artists (MAOE), and the Széchenyi Prize.