Orava Quartet: Classical Fab Four bring socks appeal to the stage
Steve Meacham
On first acquaintance, the sharp suits, sharp shoes and sharp showbiz shots make the Orava Quartet seem less a traditional string quartet and more a typically manufactured "boy band".
Perhaps not 5 Seconds Of Summer but more the early, Brian Epstein-managed "mop top" Beatles who were photographed hamming it up on the cover of each new best-selling album.
Looking sharp: Orava Quartet have a carefully cultivated image.
At 28, Karol ("Kaz") Kowalik is the youngest of the ensemble, so he's usually singled out to leap, lunge or look lonely on their publicity shots.
But lest anyone should think the Orava Quartet is a triumph of style over substance, the four members – first violinist Daniel Kowalik, second violinist David Dalseno, violist Thomas Chawner and Kaz – have become the first string quartet to be recorded on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon Australia label.
Their debut album, a Russian-only affair featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich, was released this week. They will perform the album at the Sydney Opera House on February 18.
If it's a long way to the top if you want to rock'n'roll, it's even longer if you're carrying a cello.
But the younger Kowalik had little choice. His Polish-born, viola-playing father, George Kowalik, taught Kaz's two older siblings, Sylvia and Daniel, to play violin.
"I was always destined to play cello so I could complete the family quartet," Kaz admits. "At school, Sylvia, Dan, dad and I played as a quartet, but dad's plan was always that we'd find a viola player our own age when we got to [the Sydney Conservatorium of Music]."
At the Con, the three Kowaliks replaced their father with fellow student, Chawner.
They called themselves the Orava Quartet, after a work by the Polish composer Wojiech Kilar to which the three siblings had spent their childhood listening.
Their big break came in 2011 when they were chosen to study for two years at the University of Colorado as quartet-in-residence, working closely with the celebrated Takacs Quartet and performing extensively across the US.
The recently married Sylvia decided not to go.
If it's a long way to the top if you want to rock'n'roll, it's even longer if you're carrying a cello.
"There's never just four people in a quartet," Kaz explains. "There's always eight, including the partners. It was a big commitment to study in the US for two years."
As Sylvia's replacement, the other three chose Dalseno – a Con contemporary.
"The four of us lived together in the same house in Colorado for two years," Kaz says. "It's pretty intense being in a string quartet and living together.
"People assume all you do is play beautiful classical music all day. But, as a teacher once told me, being in a string quartet is like being in a marriage without the benefits."
In the US they also learned an important lesson about presentation: when they took to the stage in black jeans, that was all a radio reviewer talked about.
So they started dressing in sharp suits – although "the group" admits they didn't realise the importance of "socks appeal".
"Tom's socks were always too short, so the feedback from our concerts was, 'Great concert, shame about the socks'," Kaz says.
"For a joke, we started wearing creepy socks … now people are obsessed with our socks. They say, 'Really looking forward to your Tchaikovsky concert … what socks will you be wearing?'"
Mention of Tchaikovsky brings the conversation back to the Orava Quartet's chosen speciality – Russian chamber music. Why, given the Kowalik family's Polish ancestry and all the historical baggage between Poland and the Soviet Union?
"When you're putting down your repertoire, you need to feel strongly about it and feel you have something new to say," the cellist explains. "Rachmaninov's Two Movements for String Quartet, written when he was young, is barely played.
"As for the Shostakovich [the legendary String Quartet No. 8], this is music about the struggle ordinary people had to endure during the communist years. That was equally true of the Russians as it was for the Poles."
Since returning to Australia, the quartet have been based in Brisbane as quartet-in-residence with the chamber orchestra Camerata.
Universal Music Australia signed Orava Quartet to Deutsche Grammophon after hearing them perform at the 2015 Musica Viva Huntington Estate Music Festival in Mudgee.
The album also features a bonus track that symbolises the Slavic-Australian nature of Orava. Greta Bradman, the rising operatic soprano (and granddaughter of the late Sir Don), joins them on Rachmaninov's Vocalise, written for soprano and double string quartet.
The quartet performed both quartet parts, overdubbing themselves in the studio, just as the post mop-top Beatles did 50 years before.
One last question. Kowalik – like Kovacs and Kowalski – is the Polish equivalent of Smith in English, meaning an ancestor somewhere was an ironmonger or blacksmith.
So what does Orava mean in Polish?
There's a long pause before Kas Kowalik replies. "It means 'squirrel'."
Orava Quartet perform their debut album at the Sydney Opera House on February 18 and at Melbourne Recital Centre on March 13. They perform a separate concert, Czech Fantasy at MRC on October 25.
