Born in Kraków, Poland, Barnaba Poprawski studied in Stuttgart with Roland Glassl and Andra Darzins, after which he moved to Vienna to study with Hans Peter Ochsenhofer. He holds degrees from both Stuttgart and Vienna. He started his training as an orchestral musician at an early age, first in youth orchestras in his homeland, and later as a member of both the prestigious Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart.

From 2008 he became a regular guest player at the Wiener Staatsoper and with the Wiener Philharmoniker. He won a seat with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra in 2013, where he played until 2018. In the meantime, he was invited to lead several European orchestras as a solo viola player, including the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra Innsbruck, Liechtenstein Symphony Orchestra, and Wiener Kammerorchester. With this experience, he took up the position of associate solo viola with the Sinfonia Varsovia in Warsaw in 2018; and a year later he returned to Vienna, following a successful audition for the Wiener Staatsoper and Wiener Philharmoniker. As an orchestral player he has performed with Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez, Krzysztof Penderecki, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Christian Thielemann, Daniele Gatti, Zubin Mehta, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Andris Nelsons, and Mariss Jansons.

Parallel to his career as an orchestra musician, he has been active as a member of several chamber music ensembles, including Klangforum Wien, a music group specialising in performing pieces written for unusual combinations of instruments, and Ensemble XX. Jahrhundert.

He has played at the world's biggest classical music festivals, including the Salzburg Festival, BBC Proms, and Lucerne Festival, as well as at many local initiatives such as a festival in Asahikawa, Japan, and La folle journée de Nantes in France. His repertoire spans from the baroque to cutting-edge contemporary, to which he devoted special parts of both his training and career. Poprawski is a devoted teacher, with special focus on audition preparation and chamber music.

This is his first appearance at PMF.