Polish violinist Kaja Nowak performs across Europe as soloist and chamber musician. The 2023/24 season highlights include performances with the Karski Quartet at Flagey in Brussels and the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ for the String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, concerts in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Poland, as well as the release of a CD album with string quintets by Boccherini, recorded with the Karskis and cellist Raphaël Feye for Evil Penguin.
Having made her concerto debut with the Rzeszów Philharmonic Orchestra in Poland at the age of thirteen, Kaja has since appeared with orchestras in Poland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, performing under the baton of renowned conductors such as Wojciech Rajski or Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk in concertos by Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Dvořák. As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with artists such as Ivry Gitlis, Philippe Graffin, Jean-Marc Philips Varjabedian, Raphael Wallfisch, Gary Hoffman, Nobuko Imai or Christian Ivaldi among others, as well as with many exciting musicians of her generation. She has performed in venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Concertgebouw Brugge, or Flagey in Brussels; and has been a guest at chamber music festivals including Schiermonnikoog, Consonances, Musique de Chambre à Giverny, Resonances, Midis-Minimes, Rome Chamber Music Festival, Musiq3 Festival. Kaja has also participated in the Open Chamber Music sessions at IMS Prussia Cove in the UK.
As a founding member of the Karski Quartet, Kaja has toured across Europe and released a CD with string quintets by Boccherini, recorded with cellist Raphaël Feye for the Evil Penguin label. The album garnered enthusiastic reviews in the international music press and was nominated for the longlist of the Preis Der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik. She is also a member of the St. George Quintet, praised by The Strad magazine for their „expressive fluency and phrasing”. Their discography includes two critically acclaimed CD albums and a world premiere recording of Frederick Septimus Kelly's String Trio, released digitally in 2020.
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 Walentyna Gorodyska and Robert Naściszewski. Kaja also owes a lot to Helen Brunner, whose masterclass at the yearly Zenon Brzewski International Music Courses in Łańcut she attended many times, first as student and later as interpreter and assistant. She now lives in Brussels and plays on a violin made by Andrew Fairfax in 2012.