Conducted by Marco Bellasi, featuring cello soloists Eleanor Streatfeild and Karol Kowalik.
Born into a musical family, Karol began learning the Cello at the age of eight to complete the family string quartet. On scholarship, Karol graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music Performance under the tutelage of prominent Cellist, Professor Uzi Wiesel.
As a solo cellist, Karol has been awarded numerous prizes and awards including First Place in the Australian Youth Classical Music Competition, and Third Prize in the Gisborne International Music Competition in New Zealand. He also performed the Schumann Cello Concerto as a finalist in the “Great Romantics” Competition held in the Melbourne Recital Centre. He has received scholarships to attend some of the most prestigious music festivals and summer schools in the world, such as the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, The Meadowmount School of Music in New York, The Radolfzell Sommerakadamie in Germany, and The Banff Arts Centre in Canada.
Karol is a passionate chamber musician, having returned from the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA where he held a tertiary teaching appointment coaching Cello and Chamber Music. During the two year residency, he was also mentored extensively by the world renowned Takács String Quartet, as part of a Professional Certificate in Quartet Performance. As a founding member of the internationally acclaimed Orava String Quartet, he has toured internationally and performed in some of the world’s most prestigious venues.
Eleanor is principal cellist and co-director of the Australian Session Orchestra, and founder of Sydney-based Radu Cello Ensemble. Her cello studies began in Ethiopia where her family lived until 1994, but soon after moving back to Australia, she began lessons with Anthea Scott-Mitchell at the Newcastle Conservatorium. On a cello scholarship from the age of 13, Eleanor also had the privilege of taking part in Hunter Strings, a youth orchestra initiative that put her on the path to her Bachelor of Music in Performance and 8 years of Australian Youth Orchestra programs, including a tour to China and Europe.
Eleanor now performs with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Gold Coast Chamber Orchestra, the Nano Symphony, Ensemble Trivium and Little Match Productions. She is also a performer and teaching artist with Sounds Across Oceans, holding masterclasses for improvisation workshops and ‘Tree of Life’, a multi-discipline experience engaging seniors in Brisbane. So far in 2022 Eleanor has programmed and performed concerts for Sydney’s Music in the Sky series, as well as various chamber music concerts for Melbourne’s Callisto String Quartet.