Karski Quartet & Raphaël Feye
Biography Karski Quartet & Raphaël Feye
Karski Quartet
was founded in 2018 by violinists Kaja Nowak and Natalia Kotarba, violinist and violist Diede Verpoest and cellist Julia Kotarba. Having played with one another in many different combinations, the four met as a quartet during the 2018 Resonances Festival Academy, where they were coached by Elisabeth Kufferath and Philippe Graffin, and again at the Rencontres Internationales Musicales d’Enghien, where they participated in masterclasses with Amy Norrington and David Waterman. Soon after they went on to take part in their first competition as a string quartet, the 4th International Music Competition Triomphe de l’Art in Brussels, where they were awarded the Grand Prix as well as the Special Prize for the alumni of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. From January until June 2019 they will be joining the String Quartet Studio at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, working closely with violinist Donald Grant (Elias Quartet) and members of the RNCM’s Chamber Music faculty.
Based in Brussels, their concert engagements since the inception of the quartet have brought them to Belgian venues as well as concert series and chamber music festivals in France, the Netherlands and the UK.
Karski Quartet takes its name from Jan Karski, the legendary World War II resistance-movement figure. Commited as he was to showing others the dramatic truth about the war, the Karski Quartet members strongly believe that every era needs heroes like him. Amid the serious difficulties which the whole human population is facing now, they find Karski’s profound compassion and uncompromising attitude an example to be emulated in art as well as in life.
Raphaël Feye
is a cellist and conductor and a graduate of the Royal Conservatories of Music in Brussels (Master of Music with great distinction in the classes of Marie Hallynck and Jeroen Reuling), the Hochschule für Musik "Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy" in Leipzig and the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, Raphaël Feye studied with members of the Alban Berg, Artemis and Danel Quartets, Eberhart Feltz and the cellist Lluis Claret. He also holds a degree in Music History. He studied conducting with Jean-Sébastien Béreau (Lille), Jorma Panula (Helsinki) and Niels Muus (Vienna). He regularly attends the rehearsals of Sir Roger Norrington, whose work particularly inspires him. He has conducted the London Mozart Players, the Janacek Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the Ensemble Vocal de Bruxelles and the Octopus Choir. In the field of opera, he has appeared as a guest conductor in Mozart's 'The Magic Flute', 'The Abduction from the Seraglio' and 'Don Giovanni' as well as Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale'. With the orchestra 'Les Métamorphoses', which he founded with Camille Feye, he recorded a first recording as a conductor with the pianist Julien Libeer on Haydn, Lipatti and Mozart, which was acclaimed by the press, as well as a second recording of Weinberg's music with the cellist Pieter Wispelwey and the clarinetist Jean-Michel Charlier, which was released in 2022.Raphaël studied at the classical humanities school Schola Nova. He now teaches cello and organises a series of chamber music concerts. Cellist of the Coryfeye Quartet from 2002 to 2014, he has performed as a chamber musician at numerous festivals in Europe. He shares the stage with musicians such as Elina Buksha, Malin Broman, Jean-Michel Charlier, Paul Dombrecht, Augustin Dumay, Lorenzo Gatto, Christine J. Lee, Ashot Khachatourian, Pavel Kolesnikov, Yura Lee, Aleksandar Madzar, Pascal Moraguès, Laura Samuel and has collaborated with composers Philippe Boesmans, Peter Eötvös, Christopher Muscat, Frederik Neyrinck and Frederik van Rossum. He has recently participated in several broadcasts and concert broadcasts for the radio stations Musiq 3 and Klara.
