The ensemble consists of four musicians who have been performing with the most important historical performance groups in Poland and abroad for many years. The quartet was founded in 2017 to discover lesser-known chamber music of the 18th and 19th centuries. In its activities, the Equilibrium String Quartet focuses on bringing back to life – in cooperation with musicologists and taking into account old performance practices – forgotten works of this period, especially the works of Polish composers. In the common consciousness, Polish chamber music of the classical and romantic eras is very little known and almost absent from the concert and phonographic repertoire. Equilibrium String Quartet wants to gradually fill this gap. The band has recorded five albums, including among others: Elsner: String Quartets Op. 8, with an unknown 1799 version of Elsner’s works, and Fantasias with works by Lessel, Kurpiński and Noskowski. Album released in 2021 with music of Władysław Żeleński was nominated to Fryderyk award. The autumn of 2025 will see the premiere of the ensemble’s latest album – the first ever recording of Juliusz Zarębski’s Piano Quintet on period instruments, in cooperation with pianist Tobias Koch.
Sulamita Slubowska – 1st violin
Violinist, soloist, chamber musician, and above all – a musician.
As of the 2024/2025 season, she is concertmistress of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. She graduated from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in the class of Professor Szymon Krzeszowiec, where she currently works as an academic lecturer. She also trained her artistic skills under the tutelage of such eminent personalities as Pierre Amoyal, Gidon Kremer, Maria Szwajger-Kułakowska, Pinchas Zukerman, Bomsori Kim and Bartłomiej Nizioł.
Sulamita Slubowska has been recognized at many prestigious music competitions. She is the winner of, among others, first prize at the 13th “Young Paganini” International Violin Competition, first prize at the 10th Stanislaw Serwaczynski National Competition for Young Violinists, a finalist at the 1st Karol Szymanowski International Competition, and a participant in the 16th Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition. In 2022 she was nominated for the prestigious Coryphaeus of Polish Music award in the category of Cover of the Year.
As a soloist, she has performed with most Polish symphonic ensembles, including the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the AUKSO Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy, the Symphony Orchestra of the Silesian Opera, the Symphony Orchestras of the Sudecka, Podkarpacie, Lower Silesia, Silesia, Lublin, Poznań Philharmonics and the Symphony Orchestra of the Staatstheater in Cottbus.
Sulamita Slubowska continues to develop and explore, resulting in a journey between the world of contemporary music and historical performance. These peregrinations are not without influence on her playing. She performs as primarius of the Equilibrium String Quartet, is a member of the Metropolis Piano Quartet and the {oh!} Orchestra.
The year 2022 brought two albums by the violinist: a solo album, Sulamita, released by DUX Recording Producers – well received by critics and arousing considerable interest in the music world, and an album recorded with the Equilibrium String Quartet, on which we can hear chamber works by Wladyslaw Zeleński performed on historical instruments (All’Improvviso publishing house).
Malgorzata Malke – 2nd violin
Soloist and chamber musician. In 2022, she was nominated for the International Classical Music Award for her recording of G.Ph. Telemann’s 12 fantasies for solo violin, her solo recording debut. For years she has collaborated with the most important ensembles of the Polish and European early music scene. She is currently permanently affiliated with the Collegium Marianum from Prague under the direction of Jana Semeradova, as well as the Polish orchestras Arte dei Suonatori and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra. Previously, she was one of the founders of the {oh!} Orchestra, with which she recorded, among other things, the album Concerto Grosso: Émigré to the British Isles for the Belgian label MUSO, performing solo parts with Martyna Pastuszka. She also co-founded the trio Extempore for 10 years, with which she recorded the album Telemann: Solos & Trios, released in 2018.
On her initiative, a string quartet Equilibrium was formed in 2017, playing historical instruments and specializing in the Polish Romantic repertoire, with which she regularly performs in Poland and abroad. With this ensemble she has already recorded five albums of Polish music of the period. Since 2017, she has been exploring classical and romantic repertoire in chamber ensembles using historical pianos.
Małgorzata Malke is a graduate of the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice in Adam Musialski’s violin class and Martyna Pastuszko’s baroque violin class. She also studied – on an Erasmus scholarship – at the Universities of Music in Graz (violin) and Vienna (historical performance practice) under the direction of Dominika Falger. She performs early music on a violin dating from 1719 by French violin maker Claude Pierray. She is a recipient of a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. As a teacher, Margaret Malke also works with the youngest violinists using the Suzuki method.
Anna Nowak – viola
Violinist by training, viola player by vocation. She has studied historical performance under Zbigniew Pilch at the Academy of Music in Wroclaw, Rachel Podger at the Royal College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, as well as during numerous courses taught by Amandine Beyer, Petra Müllejans and Enrico Onofri, among others.
Already during her studies, she established cooperation with Arte dei Suonatori, the Harmonologia ensemble and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra. She currently leads a rich concert life, performing – as a violinist and violist – with ensembles such as L’Arpeggiata, Capella Cracoviensis, Collegium 1704, {oh!} Orchestra, Holland Baroque, Les Ambassadeurs, Kore Orchestra, Capella Regia Polona and Dresdner Festspielorchester. She has played in concert halls throughout Europe, as well as in Asia and North America. CD recordings featuring her have been released on the BIS, Chanel Classics, Alpha, Dacapo and DUX labels. Since 2021, she has been teaching a historical viola class at the Fryderyk Chopin University in Warsaw. Since 2023, he has been part of The Wagner Cycles research project, bringing together the orchestras of the Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Koln under the baton of Kent Nagano. The result of this meeting is to be the first recording of a cycle of Richard Wagner’s musical dramas on historical instruments.
Tomasz Pokrzywiński – cello
An extremely versatile musician who escapes pigeonholing and is constantly expanding his circle of interests and musical experience. He is first and foremost a cellist who plays various forms of the instrument (from baroque to contemporary with the addition of electronics), but he is also a sound director, arranger, composer, improviser and cultural animator.
At this stage of his artistic path, he is permanently associated with the Bastarda Trio, Equilibrium String Quartet, Holland Baroque and Capella Cracoviensis. He has also worked for many years in Poland with Arte dei Suonatori and {oh!} Orchestra, and in the UK with the Academy of Ancient Music and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
In European historical performance circles, he is a respected chamber musician and basso continuo specialist – he has performed with leading ensembles and soloists of the early music movement in the most important concert halls of the Old Continent, as well as in America, Asia and Africa.
As an animator of culture and manager, he brings to life and co-creates such initiatives as the Zone of Silence festival in the Royal Lazienki Park, the 3×3 Festival and the concert series Transcriptions, Classical Jams and Smykofonia.
Since 2016, he has been working with the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, where he currently teaches a historical cello class.