We are very pleased to welcome Karol Kowalik from the acclaimed Orava Quartet to perform the Elgar Cello Concerto with us, one of the most recognizable works in the repertoire. After graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium, Karol’s professional career has followed the path of performer, teacher and also winner of the Australian Youth Classical Music Competition. Apart from being a vital member of the internationally respected Orava Quartet, Karol and his colleagues are also the Quartet-in-residence with Camerata Queensland.
The Northern Rivers Symphony Orchestra would like to invite you to join us to warmly welcome back Conductor Nicholas Routley for our first concert this year – ‘Enchanting Cello’ as Musical Director and conductor – with special guest soloist Cellist Karol Kowalik. The concert will be held at the Tweed Civic Centre on Sunday 22nd April 2018 at 2.30 pm. Nicholas and Karol also happen to have been teacher and student in the past, and so will be very happy to share in musicmaking once again.
Always curious, I asked Mr Routley how he had arrived at this particular program and this is what he said….
Well that’s a good question!
The Schubert symphony has been a personal favourite of mine for as long as I can remember. I was brought up on the wonderful performance of Barbarolli with the Halle, and the symphony still seems to me one of the greatest outpourings of joy in the entire literature of the orchestra… and that from the composer of Death and the Maiden, and Winterreise!
It starts with a horn solo (actually two horns in unison) that takes us into the magic of the journey of life, and I thought I would pair it with a work written just one year later which also starts with a horn solo. Weber’s Oberon overture is quite obviously about magic, and his evocation of the fairies in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is perhaps more playful than Schubert’s, but no less romantic and beguiling.
In between these the wonderful cellist in the Orava String Quartet, Karol Kowalik, will play the Elgar concerto. This is at the opposite extreme from the other works. Written almost 100 years after the Weber and the Schubert pieces, it is one of the saddest testaments that any composer has left us, whose grief is only rivalled by the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique, and some movements Mahler. You have to program such a work with happier music!
Born to a very musical family, multi-award winning Karol Kowalik is a founding member of the much travelled and prestigious Orava String Quartet. Between his busy schedule of rehearsals and concerts, he finds time to teach at All Saints Anglican School, Merrimac and run a private studio. Mr Kowalik is a most exciting cellist and passionate chamber musician who declares ‘to be a musician is a fantastic emotional experience’!
You, dear reader, will not want to miss this exciting pairing of fine musicians your orchestra, the Northern Rivers Symphony Orchestra, has brought together for the first concert of the 2018 season. The concert will be held at the Tweed Civic Centre on Sunday 22nd April 2018 at 2.30 pm.