During 35 years of conducting career, Tarbuk has been engaged in nearly every style of music, from symphonic , operatic, ballet to electronic music, working with orchestras, academies and opera theatres around the world. He is a champion of new works as much as of the great masters of the past.

Mladen Tarbuk is one of the most versatile artists being equally successful as a composer, conductor, writer and educator. He performs with many renowned orchestras and opera houses, such as Sinfonietta Cracovia, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Hungarian State Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Orquesta sinfonica de Estado Mexico, Wiener Konzert Verein Orchester, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra sinfonica Siciliana Palermo, Teatro Verdi Trieste, State Opera Prague, Symphony Orchestra of Hungarian Radio, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, and was a regular guest conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf.

Tarbuk remains observant and open to all music, allowing stylistic innovations he encounters to merge with his personal musical language. He enjoys blending different kinds of music with his own, from diverse world ethnic idioms to spectral or pointillist structures.