Kobialka studied violin at the
Hartt College of Music. Kobialka was the principal second violinist with the
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra from September 1975 to September 2008. He was also the founding concertmaster and soloist with San Francisco’s
Midsummer Mozart Festival Orchestra with
George Cleve. As a composer, Kobialka's
Concerto for the Zeta-Polyphonic Electronic Violin premiered in March 1991. With the San Francisco Symphony, he gave both the American premiere of
Toru Takemitsu's
Far Calls, Coming Far, and the world premiere of
Charles Wuorinen's
Rhapsody. With the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under
Robert Shaw, he premiered
Ben Weber’s Violin Concerto No. 1, dedicated to him. He also served as concertmaster for the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's
Mass. In popular music, he played violin on several tracks on the 1975 rock album
Ambrosia (by the
band of the same name), including the
solo on "
Holdin' on to Yesterday". Kobialka taught at Notre Dame University, and also at the
University of the Incarnate Word. He was a recipient of the Medium Term Grant to study traditional and contemporary music by the Japanese government. Kobialka also served on Advisory Boards for Beam Foundation, Institute of Holistic Medicine, and Pacific
Guqin Association. Kobialka was commissioned to compose a film score for the "Split Horn" documentary
Life of a Hmong Shaman in America, and wrote 10 orchestral and solo violin compositions for various instrumental combinations. His recorded solo artist albums include one for the Advance Recordings, and one for the Desto record label of original works dedicated to him by
Lou Harrison,
Henry Brant, and Glen Glassow,
Donald Martino, and
Arnold Franchetti. Over his career, he commissioned over 30 works from composers like Charles Wuorinen,
William Bolcom,
Wayne Peterson,
George Rochberg,
Vivian Fine, Arthur Custer,
Meyer Kupferman,
Marta Ptaszynska,
Theodore Antoniou,
Fred Fox, and
Benjamin Lees. ==Company==