Robert Kowalski, Katarzyna Wasiak, Noga Quartet
Biography Robert Kowalski, Katarzyna Wasiak, Noga Quartet
Robert Kowalski
was born in 1985. He took his first violin lesson at the age of seven, and barely four years later made his debut with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, accompanied by the orchestra of the Baltic Opera. After completing Levels 1 and 3 of the Feliks Nowowiejski Music School in Gdańsk, in Professor Krystyna Jurecka’s class, he studied in Germany and Switzerland under Valery Gradow. Kowalski was significantly influenced by Kolja Blacher and Ana Chumachenco; Bernard Greenhouse, Ivry Gitlis and Ida Haendel also strongly shaped his musical development. Kowalski has won prizes in the Val Tidone International Music Competition in Italy, and the Alexandre Tansman Musical Individuality Competition in Łódź; he won the Gdańsk Mayor’s Prize for Young Artists the first year it was awarded. Kowalski also won a Young Poland scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
He regularly appears as a soloist and chamber player at festivals in Europe, the US and Asia, performing in renowned venues: Wigmore Hall in London, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, Vienna’s Musikverein and New York’s Carnegie Hall. Kowalski also collaborates with outstanding musical personalities including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Reinhard Goebel, Martha Argerich and Julian Rachlin, who are a great source of inspiration for him. In 2018 Kowalski’s performance of Richard Strauss’s Violin Concerto was released on a CD from CPO; he is accompanied by the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana under the baton of Markus Poschner. The recording was well-received by critics around Europe, and nominated for the International Classical Music Awards.
Kowalski is concertmaster of the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana (Lugano), as well as a member of the Szymanowski Quartet, with whom he tours worldwide.
He plays a J.B. Vuillaume violin from 1860.
Katarzyna Wasiak
began her musical education in the music school in Zielona Góra, in Barbara Piechowska’s piano class, later studying with Krzysztof Jabłoński and Janina Butor in Wrocław. In 2002, at the age of 17, Wasiak began studying at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, initially with Oleg Maisenberg and then with Wolfgang Watzinger. In 2006 she continued her studies at the University of Arts in Berlin with Jacques Rouvier, earning her diploma in 2009. Wasiak received a master’s degree at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin with Fabio Bidini, additionally earning a pedagogical diploma.
Wasiak has won numerous international piano competitions, including in Dallas (US), Vanves (France) and Villa de Capdepera (Spain). During her studies, she held scholarships from the Polish Ministry of Culture, the Prime Minister of Poland and the Chopin Society. In addition, she won scholarships won the Crescendum Est-Polonia Foundation, as well as the Viadrina scholarship of the Rotary Club Germany several years in a row. Wasiak has performed at renowned festivals such as Carinthischer Sommer, the Schleswig–Holstein Music Festival and the Arsonore Music Festival.
Wasiak performs throughout Europe as well as in Russia, Canada and the US, appearing with renowned groups such as the Warsaw Radio Orchestra, the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic of Ukraine and artists such as Michail Jurowski, Nikolai Diadiura, Jerzy Swoboda, Jan Krenz and Benjamin Schmid, Sayako Kusaka, Robert Kowalski, Thomas Selditz, Felix Schwartz, Joachim Greiner, Tomasz Tomaszewski, Agata Szymczewska, Clemens Hagen, Andreas Greger, Lukasz Dlugosz, Ania Vegry and the Noga Quartet.
The Noga Quartet
follows the great tradition of chamber music that enthrals in performances of some of the greatest compositions of the string quartet repertoire. Since winning first prize in the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 2015, it has been invited to perform in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and France. For the Noga Quartet, string quartet playing is the pinnacle of musical expression.
Established in Berlin in 2009, the Noga Quartet has an impressive musical pedigree, with coaching from both the Artemis Quartet and the Alban Berg Quartet. Members have also been privileged to perform in masterclasses with some of world’s greatest chamber musicians: Heime Müller, Volker Jacobsen, Philipe de Groote, Peter Schuhmayer, Atar Arad, Thomas Riebl, Paul Katz, Timothy Eddy, Miriam Fried and Andras Keller. The quartet is based in Berlin where its members are fully committed to music making at the highest level, also performing with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
With three of the members originally from France, and one from Israel and Italy, the quartet shows a flair for a wide variety of musical repertoire, with an original character to its interpretations and sound.
During its formative years, the Noga Quartet was selected to take part in a number of prestigious international competitions and festivals, including the Premio Borciani in 2014, the Banff International String Quartet Competition in 2010 and 2013, the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2011, the Ravinia Music Festival in 2011 and the McGill Quartet Academy in 2010 and 2012. The quartet received a scholarship from the Ottilie-Selbach-Redslob foundation in Berlin in 2010, and in 2014 won first prize in the competition of the Irene Steels-Wilsing Foundation in Berlin.
