Management and the Artistic Council

Photo Magdalena Adamczewska

Piotr Baron

Director

Born on Jan. 5, 1961, Piotr Baron had his musical debut in 1977. The next year he was distinguished as an artist and in 1980 was awarded the 2nd Prize at the Jazz nad Odrą Festival. In 1984, he won the Grand Prix at the Jazzaldia Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. He received his MA degree at the Karol Lipiński Musical Academy in Wrocław, Poland. Throughout his over a 40-year-long musical career, he played with the most outstanding jazz artists of Poland, Europe, and the US. As a pedagogue, he has lectured and taught saxophone, jazz harmony and improvisation at the Jazz Faculty of University of Applied Sciences in Nysa (until now), at the Wrocław School of Jazz and Popular Music, as well as in the Jazz Stream of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Zielona Góra.
He has held open jazz lectures at the US, conducted master classes at summer jazz workshops in the Prague (CZ), Lvov UA), and many Polish cities.
From 1994 to 2011, Piotr Baron ran his auteur program on the Polish Radio in Wrocław, and from 2012 to 2020 in the radioJAZZ.fm. He has written music reviews and articles (in the Jazz Forum Magazine among others) and is the writer of a dozen scientific publications.
From December 2015 to August 2018, he worked at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as an advisor to the Undersecretary of State and Deputy Head of the Department. In September 2018, he was appointed chief-director of the Polish Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra.

Artistic Council

Photo Łukasz Rajchert

Andrzej Kosendiak

Director of the Witold Lutosławski National Forum of Music in Wrocław; an artist, conductor and teacher, he is among Poland’s most active musicians and promoters of musical life. He graduated from the Faculty of Composition, Conducting and Music Theory of the Karol Lipiński Academy of Music in Wrocław; he earned his higher doctorate (habilitation) in 2013.
For many years, he worked intensely as a teacher at the Academy of Music in Wrocław, including at the position of the Head of the Inter-Faculty Studio of Early Music from 2001 to 2009. From 2014 to 2016, he lectured at the Academy of Music in Gdańsk, and in 2016 he returned as a professor to the Academy of Music in Wrocław. In 2016, he inaugurated a programme entitled Musica polonica rediviva, the purpose of which is to promote performances of Polish music by young artists worldwide with the support of conservatoires and festivals (the programme’s partners so far included the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Conservatorio di Musica Luca Marenzio in Brescia, and Conservatorio Superior de Música de Aragón in Zaragoza).

Agnieszka Duczmal

“She is short and lively, and she sways like a flame”
Wells Journal (United Kingdom)
The most famous Polish female conductor was born to a family of musical traditions. In 1971, she graduated with distinction from State Higher School of Music in Poznań, where she studied conducting with Professor Witold Krzemiński, and began work as assistant conductor at State Philharmonic Orchestra in Poznań. Later the same year, she started work as conductor at the Poznań Opera where, among other pieces, she prepared the Polish premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Sergey Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet.
In 1968, while still a student, Agnieszka Duczmal founded a chamber orchestra, which in 1977 became Polish Radio and Television Chamber Orchestra, and later, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio. From the beginning of the Orchestra’s operation, Agnieszka Duczmal has been its managing and artistic director.

Photo Jacek Mójta

Photo Wojciech Mateusiak

Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk

He graduated cum laude from the Academy of Music in Katowice, where he studied Conducting with Karol Stryja. In 1993, thanks to a scholarship from the American Society for Polish Music, he mastered his conducting skills in Los Angeles. In the years 1984-1986 he conducted an ensemble consisting of musicians from the Katowice-based Polish Radio and Television Grand Symphony Orchestra during the festivals Warsaw Autumn and the Silesian Days of Contemporary Music.  In 1986 he was appointed Artistic Director of the State Symphony Orchestra in Zabrze, and in 1990 General and Artistic Director of the State Philharmonic in Białystok, with which he toured the USA (1995; Carnegie Hall, among other locations). For two seasons he was General and Artistic Director of the Poznań Philharmonic (1996). Since 1998 – Artistic Director of the Henryk Mikołaj Górecki Silesian Philharmonic, and since 1999 – Artistic Director and Juror of the Grzegorz Fitelberg International Competitions for Conductors in Katowice. Member of the Artistic Board – Artistic Coordinator of the Polish Orchestra Sinfonia Iuventus.

Stanisław Michał Rybarczyk

Conductor, cultural animator, manager and educator. Associated, throughout his artistic career as a conductor, with the Wrocław Opera, Wrocław Philharmonic, PR and TV Centre in Wrocław, Provincial House of Culture, IMPART Art Centre, Pro Musica Artistic Agency, Academy of Music in Wrocław, Music High School in Wrocław, Sudecka Philharmonic in Wałbrzych and Theater Goerlitz (Germany). Creator and long-term artistic director of the PR and TV Chamber Ensemble in Wrocław, the White Stork Synagogue Choir in Wrocław, the Polish-German Young Philharmonic in Lower Silesia, the Wrocław Philharmonic Chamber Choir and a number of other groups.

Photo Artist’s archive

Photo Mieczysław Wieliczko

Piotr Sułkowski

since 2011 the Executive and Artistic Director of the Warmia and Masuria Philharmonic.
He holds an extensive opera experience gained during his service as a Conductor and later as the Artistic Director of the Cracow Opera and the Music Director of the Wildwood Opera Festival in Little Rock, Arkansas (USA). He prepared a number of opera premieres, including several world premieres. For example, in 2007, during the Polish Music Festival, being part of the Szymanowski Year, he gave the world premiere of yet unknown K. Szymanowski’s The Lottery for Husbands operetta and recorded it in co-operation with the Polish Music Publishing House (PWM). The Rape of Lucretia, by B. Britten, produced by Sulkowski in 2004, was recognized as the best performance of the year at the Bydgoszcz Opera Festival. Sulkowski co-founded the Cracow Chamber Opera and staged several productions there. In 2008-09, he worked as the Deputy Director of the Polish Radio Choir. Since 2009 to 2011 he was Artistic Director of the Torun Symphonic Orchestra. Since 2008 to 2014 the First Guest Conductor of the Signature Symphony Orchestra in Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA).