Performers
BASSEM AKIKI
A conductor educated in Beirut (music conservatory and philosophy at the Lebanese University) and in Poland (choral conducting with Stanisław Krawczyński at the Academy of Music in Kraków and conducting with Marek Pijarowski at the Wrocław Academy).
He has held the posts of conductor at Wrocław Opera (2007–2013), artistic director of NFM ‘New Year with Philharmonix’ in Wrocław (2016–2020) and of the Silesian Opera in Bytom (2018–2019); music director of Wrocław Opera since 2020. Akiki has led orchestras in Lebanon, Italy, the United States, Canada, and Uruguay, also appearing at the Vienna Konzerthaus and music theatres in Madrid and Amsterdam as well as during Féstival d’Aix-en-Provence. In 2014 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels he prepared the world premiere of Nicholas Lens’ opera Shell Shock to a libretto by Nick Cave, in which he conducted the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France for the centenary of the end of World War I. Akiki has also premiered other operas: Nicholas Lens’ Slow Man at the Poznań Grand Theatre, Björk’s Medúlla, and Mark Grey’s Frankenstein at La Monnaie.
Bassem Akiki is a Doctor of Musical Arts, lecturing at the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław and the Warsaw Collegium Civitas. He also teaches masterclasses.
On the Fryderyk-awarded album of music by Paweł Mykietyn, he conducts NFM Wrocław Philharmonic with soloist Marcin Zdunik in this composer’s Cello Concerto No. 2.
He has held the posts of conductor at Wrocław Opera (2007–2013), artistic director of NFM ‘New Year with Philharmonix’ in Wrocław (2016–2020) and of the Silesian Opera in Bytom (2018–2019); music director of Wrocław Opera since 2020. Akiki has led orchestras in Lebanon, Italy, the United States, Canada, and Uruguay, also appearing at the Vienna Konzerthaus and music theatres in Madrid and Amsterdam as well as during Féstival d’Aix-en-Provence. In 2014 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels he prepared the world premiere of Nicholas Lens’ opera Shell Shock to a libretto by Nick Cave, in which he conducted the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France for the centenary of the end of World War I. Akiki has also premiered other operas: Nicholas Lens’ Slow Man at the Poznań Grand Theatre, Björk’s Medúlla, and Mark Grey’s Frankenstein at La Monnaie.
Bassem Akiki is a Doctor of Musical Arts, lecturing at the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław and the Warsaw Collegium Civitas. He also teaches masterclasses.
On the Fryderyk-awarded album of music by Paweł Mykietyn, he conducts NFM Wrocław Philharmonic with soloist Marcin Zdunik in this composer’s Cello Concerto No. 2.
