Natálie Kulina (1996) is a Czech violinist, creative producer and cultural organiser based in the Netherlands, specialising in contemporary music, new media, innovative programming of classical music and multidisciplinary projects.
In 2025, Natálie focuses on deepening her work in cultural organising and works on several new musical projects (soon to be announced) as a violinist, creative leader and producer.
In 2024, Natálie premiered a new work for violin and electronics, 'Folk songs without folks' by composer Peter-Jan Wagemans, among other collaborative projects in the electroacoustic music sphere.
In 2022-2024 she was one of the Rizoom network makers and as such developed a performance piece combining aspects of contemporary electro-acoustic music, theatre and visual art, The Dark Corner of my Circles, together with Amarante Nat, Naida Amorim and Arieh Chrem. It explores inner monologue and interactions with the outside world. How much of our real self do we show to others? How much do we curate their perception of us? How much do we choose to see and understand about someone else, as a mere spectator in their story?
As a musician, I enjoy making music intuitively, and tell stories. When creating my own projects or collaborating with other artists, I like to explore both elements of surprise and rigorous order, playfulness and stillness, poetry and nonsense. I am interested in the wild contrasts and the undeniable links between individual backgrounds, human experiences, identities, cultures, ideologies and visions, in all what both divides and connects us in today’s world. I want to make art in connection to things that fascinate me, things that move me, things I am curious about, things that worry me, things that are funny, things that have been unjustly sidelined in history, and things that won’t leave my mind.
Since 2021, she has been a member of Ensemble Resilience, an innovative collective of musicians working in the space between electronic and acoustic music. From 2022 to 2024, she has regularly worked as a leader with the Doelen Ensemble in Rotterdam.
Together with Francisca Portugal she explores the surprising possibilities of a violin duo as Grimm Duette by creating new arrangements of chamber or orchestral pieces, as well as commissioning new music and exploring underperformed repertoire, finding ways to use ensemble as small as eight strings for educational purposes, in non-traditional environments and social and health care facilities.
Natálie mostly focuses on music, literature, and audiovisual art of the last hundred or so years, new works and research in contemporary arts accessibility, however she enjoys performing 'traditional' classical music too, and has branched out into historically informed performance in some of her past projects.
Alongside her performing work, Natálie is the project manager of Rizoom, and works on freelance basis as a creative producer, programmer and marketeer within the cultural sector.
In depth
Growing up in a family of visual artists and in the culturally abundant region of South Moravia, Natálie's cultivated interest in a wide array of art forms from an early age, eventually focusing her studies on music.
She previously studied at the Brno conservatory with the first violin of the Janáček Quartet, Miloš Vacek, graduated her bachelor's degree in the class of the renowned soloist Ilya Grubert and earned her masters degree with specialisation in new music with Eliot Lawson and Heleen Hulst at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
She drew knowledge and artistic inspiration from masterclasses from musicians such as Hubert Kroisamer, Alexandra Soumm, Milan Vitek, Anne Sophie Mutter, Josef Špaček, Per Enoksson or Ilya Gringolts, among many others.
Although she has since childhood performed concerts in several European countries and made appearances as a soloist with orchestras (Filharmonie Brno, Moravian Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonica Tenerife, Filharmonija Zielonogorska, Ensemble Vigo 430, to name a few), she has established herself mainly as a chamber musician, performing in venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw aan't IJ, Korzo Den Haag, De Doelen Rotterdam, Tivoli Vredenburg, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven (among others) and leading, participating, or being invited as a guest in various ensembles (Ensemble Resilience, INSOMNIO, Doelen Ensemble,...) projects (Min Oh's film 'Attendee', MAAT saxophone quartet's album 'Ciudades',...) and festivals (Minimal Music Festival Amsterdam, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam, Gaudeamus Festival, etc.) and is recognised as a dedicated performer of contemporary music.
Natálie has, alongside conservatory studies, taken the master level course Curatorial Practices in Music: Curatorial leadership & Management and in ArtEz and served as a curator for the Echoes of Nothing series, developing side programming for Muziekgebouw aan't IJ. She has continued her training path towards cultural organising behind the curtains via Gaudeamus Festival.
Natálie plays a violin from Czech luthier Tomáš Pilař and an electric five string violin from Czech company NS, acquired with the generous help of Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and Stichting Eigen Muziekinstrument.
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