Karalina Orsik

She began her musical education at the age of 9 at the Primary Music School in Dyatlovo and since 2003 she continued her studies at the Republican Music College (Minsk) with Larisa Watamaniuk.

In 2007 she gratuated with honours from the Artur Rubinstein State Music School in the class of Vadim Brodsky. In 2008-2013 Karalina Orsik-Sauter studied at the Felix Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz with Lech Bałaban and Piotr Reichert. Since 2014 she is a doctoral student and teacher of viola and chamber music at the Felix Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.

Since 2015, she has been a violist in the Ãtma Quartet with which she has won numerous awards at national and international competitions. The most important among them are: the first prize and three special prizes at the 2nd International Karol Szymanowski String Quartet Competition in Katowice (2017), Förderpreis and Bärenreiter Urtext Preis at the 10th International Franz Schubert und die Musik der Moderne Competition in Graz (2018), the third prize at the International Karol Szymanowski Music Competition in Katowice (2018), the third prize at the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award in Lugano (2019), and the second prize at the International Stanislaw Moniuszko Polish Music Competition in Rzeszów (2019).

Karalina Orsik-Sauter has performed during masterclasses taught by members of such highly acclaimed chamber ensembles as the Alban Berg Quartet, the Kuss Quartet, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Ysaÿe Quartet, the Artemis Quartet, the Cuarteto Quiroga, the Vogler Quartet, the Emerson String Quartet, the Silesian String Quartet, the Zehetmair Quartet, the Apollon Musagète Quartett, the Meccore String Quartet, the Vienna Brahms Trio, the Penderecki Piano Trio, or the Herbert Piano Trio. She has also worked with Eberhard Feltz, Alain Meunier, Avri Levitan and Marek Moś, and participated in the Jenuesses Musicales International Chamber Music Campus (Germany) and the Chigiana International Festival and Summer Academy (Italy).

Karalina Orsik-Sauter was awarded with two scholarships by the Mayor of the City of Bydgoszcz and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship “Młoda Polska” thanks to which she recorded a CD with Polish music.

Karalina has appeared in a number of prestigious festivals abroad, such as the Davos Festival in Switzerland, the Quatuors à Bordeaux, Festes Baroques, Festival and the Château de Lourmarin Summer Music Festival in France, the Zeist Music Days in Holland, or the Musethica concerts in Spain; as well as in Poland, in the Karol Szymanowski Music Days (Zakopane), the Emanations International Music Festival (Lusławice), the International Young Music Competition Winners Festival (Katowice) and the Urle Chamber Music Festival. She has also performed at most of the local, Bydgoszcz-based artistic events, among which are the Old Waterworks Chamber Music Festival, the ‘Music in the Blumwe Villa’ project, the ‘Eye Never Sleeps’ International Contemporary Art Festival, the Fonomo Music & Film Festival and the Bydgoszcz Science Festival.

Since 2018 Karalina Orsik-Sauter, as a member of the Ãtma Quartet, has been actively participating in the Le Dimore del Quartetto (Milano), promoting Polish music in Italy. The ensemble has also been engaged in the French ProQuartet programme. In 2021 the quartet has been selected for MUSA – European young MUsicians soft Skills Alliance, a professional training project ideated by Le Dimore del Quartetto and co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, aimed at enhancing musicians’ entrepreneurial skills.