Performers

Founded in 1945, it was headed by such conductors as Witold Krzemieński, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Karol Stryja, and Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk, among others. The position of its artistic director and principal conductor is currently held by Yaroslav Shemet. The Orchestra has performed with Polish artists of such calibre as Grażyna Bacewicz, Wanda Wiłkomirska, Artur Rubinstein, Leopold Stokowski, Witold Małcużyński, Henryk Szeryng, Antoni Wit, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Krystian Zimerman, Rafał Blechacz, and Agata Szymczewska, as well as foreign stars including Hermann Abendroth, Victoria de los Angeles, Agnes Baltsa, Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Bella Davidovich, Fou Ts’ong, Nicolai Gedda, Emil Gilels, Kirill Kondrashin, Zubin Mehta, Elena Obraztsova, David and Igor Oistrakh, Eugene Ormandy, Maurizio Pollini, Mstislav Rostropovich, Giuseppe di Stefano, Tibor Varga, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alexis Weissenberg, Carlo Zecchi, and Grigori Zhislin. Its more than two hundred concert tours have taken the Orchestra as far as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. It has appeared at many major European festivals, including regularly at the ‘Warsaw Autumn’, the ‘Wratislavia Cantans’, and ‘Music in Old Cracow’. The Orchestra has given more than eighty world premieres of works by, among others, Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Wojciech Kilar. Its discography comprises over forty titles, of which their recording of Karol Szymanowski’s works under Karol Stryja (Marco Polo / Naxos) is considered as the greatest achievement to date.