Performers

He studied conducting with Artur Malawski in Krakow and in Leningrad with Yevgeny Mravinsky. He was an assistant to the latter at Leningrad Philharmonic, and later a conductor at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. On his return to Poland, he started working at the Polish National Opera in Warsaw.

Conductor, academic teacher at the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk. An active conductor since age thirteen, he currently serves as artistic director of the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice and deputy director for music of the Baltic Opera in Gdańsk. Previously he also held the posts of principal guest conductor to the Neue Philharmonie Hamburg and chief conductor of Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra (INSO-Lviv).

Eminent Polish singer of Greek descent, music composer and text author; an improviser using the polyphonic singing technique. One of the most original personalities in Polish music, associated with jazz and the related genres, blues, rock, and the ethnic music scene. His voice can be heard on more than 60 albums.

Born in 2001, he graduated from primary music school in Płońsk, and continued his education with Joanna Ławrynowicz-Just and Marek Bracha (piano), Beata Popis (harpsichord), Anna Misior (chamber music), and Jarosław Wróblewski (organ) in the Zenon Brzewski Music School in Warsaw.

Countertenor, graduate of the Department of Vocal Studies of Warsaw’s Chopin University of Music (class of Artur Stefanowicz). While still a student, he made his debut in Johann Strauss II’s operetta The Revenge of the Bat at Szczecin’s Opera at the Castle. Well known and highly regarded for his interpretations of contemporary classical music, he has collaborated with such composers as Paweł Mykietyn, Bartosz Chajdecki, Maciej Zieliński, and Andrzej Zarycki.

A philologist, author of prose and poetry, translator, professor of the human sciences. His special fields are literary theory as well as the history of British and American literatures. An eminent intellectual, ranking among the elite of Polish humanist authors, he has published texts in such periodicals as ‘Brulion’, ‘Odra’, ‘Res Publica Nowa’, and ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’, as well as regularly contributing to ‘Tygodnik Powszechny’.

Having graduated from a construction industry high school in Białystok and in architecture from the Warsaw University of Technology, she eventually decided to dedicate herself to a singing career. She studied voice with Magdalena Halfter in secondary school and at Warsaw’s State Higher School of Music (1955–1960). Simultaneously she performed as a soloist in the Polish Army Song and Dance Ensemble.

She took piano lessons with Maria Drzewiecka at Toruń Conservatory and later with Henryk Sztompka. In 1939 she settled in Kraków, where in 1945 she took up studies with Sztompka at the State Higher School of Music and developed her abilities for several years under Zbigniew Drzewiecki. In 1949 she won the 11th place in the 4th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw.
Smendzianka mainly focused on Polish music (Chopin, Janiewicz, Krogulski, Ogiński, Szymanowska, F. Lessel, Zarębski, and contemporary composers).