Katarzyna - profile

Katarzyna Wozniakowska

2nd violin
INTERVIEW

What is the best thing about being a musician? The joy of making music.

When and where was your first project with the MCO? Venice 2000. I think it was in September – what a great project it was!

Can you tell us something about your instrument? It was found in the attic with – a little mouse living inside! It got inside through an f-hole, by making it a bit bigger. I don’t know what happened to the poor animal (I hope it’s not homeless) but my violin sounds great.

If you could play another instrument what would it be? Cello or harp.

What do you need to feel at home while on tour? When I'm on tour without my family… a good cup of tea in my hotel room and a book.

BIOGRAPHY

Katarzyna Wozniakowska was born in 1976 in Piekary Slaskie, a city in southern Poland. She began her music education at the age of seven and fell in love with playing violin on the very first day. She feels very fortunate that this admiration remains today.

From the very beginning of her education she has met teachers who knew how to nurture and develop this feeling inside her. Her first teachers were Ernest Dobiosz, Jacek Siemek and Roland Orlik from the Music School in Bytom.

Katarzyna’s adventure with the orchestra also began at school. At the age of nine she made her debut in an orchestra consisting of a viola, two cellos and… twenty-five violins! And – although this may be hard to believe – since that very moment she dreamt of becoming an orchestral musician. Just eight years later her dream came true when she became a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.

In 1994 Katarzyna went to study at the Warsaw Academy of Music under Professor Krzysztof Podejko. From 1996-1999 she played first violin of Le Stagioni string quartet, with which she participated in masterclasses run by such quartets as Amadeus, Medici and Camerata. She enriched her orchestral experience by cooperating with the best Polish chamber orchestras: Symfonia Varsovia and Concerto Avenna.

In 1999, Katarzyna was invited to the Polish Festival Orchestra created and led by Krystian Zimerman, and in 2000 Katarzyna started playing with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. She became a member of the MCO in 2005.

Katarzyna met her husband in Warsaw in 2005, and the couple still live there with their two sons – Bruno, born in 2005, and Borys, born in 2012.