about Kaja

Polish violinist Kaja Nowak performs across Europe as soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Having made her concerto debut with the Rzeszów Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland at the age of thirteen, she has since performed with orchestras in Poland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. As a chamber musician, Kaja has collaborated with artists such as Ivry Gitlis, Philippe Graffin, Jean-Marc Philips Varjabedian, Gary Hoffman, Nobuko Imai or Christian Ivaldi among others, as well as with many exciting musicians of her generation. She is regularly invited to perform at chamber music festivals including Schiermonnikoog, Consonances, Musique de Chambre a Giverny, Resonances, Midis-Minimes, Rome Chamber Music Festival, Musiq3 Festival, Ysaÿe's Knokke; she has also participated in the Open Chamber Music sessions at IMS Prussia Cove in the UK. Kaja has performed chamber music in venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Anton Philipszaal in The Hague, or Flagey in Brussels. She has also toured in Brazil, appearing in a series of concerts in and around Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte together with the Brazilian pianist Gian Ponte.

Kaja is a laureate of several Polish competitions in solo as well as ensemble categories, and the recipient of the Stage Personality prize, awarded upon her graduation from the Master programme in the Royal Conservatory in The Hague for her original and expressive music-making. She is also a member of award winning ensembles, the Karski Quartet (Grand Prix at the 4th International Music Competition „Triomphe de l’Art” in Brussels), and the St. George Quintet, laureate of Supernova 2016 (competition co-organised by the Belgian classical music radio station Klara), praised by The Strad magazine for their „expressive fluency and phrasing”. With these two groups she has performed in festivals such as Midis-Minimes, Iedereen Klassiek, Klarafestival, Lake District Summer Music, Grachtenfestival, Ysaÿe's Knokke and Schiermonnikoog, as well as in various concert venues in Belgium, France, the Netherlands and the UK. Together with the St. George Quintet Kaja has recorded two CD albums, both critically acclaimed by the international music press, and made a recording of Frederick Septimus Kelly's String Trio, released digitally in January 2020. The recordings of Karski Quartet and St. George Quintet, as well as its offshoot, the Septimus Trio, have been brodcast by classical music radio stations such as the British BBC3, Dutch Radio4, and Belgian Musiq3 and Klara.

Kaja studied with Konstanty Andrzej Kulka in Warsaw and with Philippe Graffin in The Hague and Brussels. Her first teachers in her hometown of Łańcut, Poland, were Valentina Gorodiskaya and Robert Naściszewski. Kaja currently lives in Brussels and plays on a Carlo Antonio Tanegia violin. It is kindly loaned to her by Helen Brunner, whose masterclass at the yearly Zenon Brzewski International Music Courses in Łańcut Kaja attended many times, first as student and later as interpreter and assistant.







  © 2020 by Kaja Nowak. Motto: "You are the music while the music lasts." ~ T.S. Eliot 
Photos used on website: © Pierre Eyben. Instagram icon: Icons8.