String sisters Kristina and Margarita Balanas. Arts editor HELEN MUSA looks at the hard work that goes into their performance.

From singing Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley in a small Latvian town to striding the stages of Berliner Philharmonie, Royal Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall, string sisters Kristina and Margarita Balanas are the perfect exemplars of how hard work pays off in the world of music. 

They’ll be at Snow Concert Hall soon after recitals in the Melbourne Recital Hall and the Sydney Opera House on their first Australian visit.

I catch up with violinist Kristina by WhatsApp as she’s passing through Brussels but in fact she, like her siblings, cellist Margarita and electric violinist Robert, is based in London travelling around a lot but especially to Riga, the capital city of their native Latvia.

Busy bees, together with Robert, they founded Balanas Classical, which promotes classical music through novel concerts, projects and charity masterclasses for young musicians.

Although they’ve all continued their careers in London, Kristina says, their most formative years were in Latvia where the education is very strong. Blessed with brilliant teachers and working very hard when they were little, there was no time for what she calls “silly things – not so much boys, but more like causing trouble, for instance burning down houses”.

Not much time for that because, unusually for classical music performers, they were all singing in a family rock ‘n’ roll band, “like the Tapp Family,” she agrees, only with different music – Chuck Berry and Elvis were their role models.

Their parents were largely self-taught but their dad, she says, had a very good musical ear.

Because of their relatively remote location in the small central Latvian town of Dobele during the 1990s, when there was not much material available, they spent a lot of time listening to rock music and writing the lyrics down from cassettes.

“I’m the oldest and we all went to the local music school then moved with our family to Riga, where our parents threw us into all kinds of artistic endeavours – art, dance folk dance; our mum was very much keen about providing an overall education,” she says.

After their basic studies, they went to the Royal Academy of Music in London, “a really fun time,” she says, praising the support the academy gives to anyone who is seriously ambitious or hard working.

“It changed our lives and it is still part of that,” Kristina says. Margarita went on to win a place in the professional diploma course in conducting there, but as Kristina says: “The academy is fantastic with opportunities,  but it doesn’t instantly get you work; that’s up to you.”

“What you do afterwards is important or you’ll be in an institution forever.”

Nonetheless, she made the best of friends there, a great support to her as she travels around the world.

All of the siblings pursue solo careers, Margaret as a conductor in Zürich and Kristina a solo violin career, this year with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra.

And Robert, who combines his background in classical music with the sound worlds of pop, rock and funk, has won praise from Elton John for his solo violin.

The Balanas Sisters chose Winter and Summer from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons to perform when in Canberra, Kristina says, as they are favourites from among their own arrangements for string duo.

One of the highlights in the second half of the concert will be Latvian composer Pēteris Vask’s Castillo Interior, which commemorates a rare 16th-century woman.

“It’s very moving,” she says, “Vask has heard us play it… he is a very spiritual person, it’s a lot about finding beauty, undamaged by anything.”

When in Sydney, the Balanas Sisters will be playing two Australian compositions, Matthew Hindson’s Always on Time, and Anne Cawrse’s Sanctuary, but they’re not on the program for Canberra.

That, Kristina hastens to assure me, is because they were cramming a lot in – but they will definitely do some Australian compositions for the encore.

The Balanas Sisters, Snow Concert Hall, February 20.