Employees

as. dr

Bartosz Michałowski

choral conducting

Warsaw Philharmonic Choir Director since the year 2017.

Bartosz Michałowski graduated with distinction in choral conducting from the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznań. In the years 1998-2005, he was the assistant of Professor Stefan Stuligrosz and the conductor of the Poznań Philharmonic Choir. Together with this choir, otherwise known as the Poznań Nightingales, he has performed extensively in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Russia, and Japan.

Bartosz Michałowski won the L’Orphée d‘Or 2015 of the Académie du Disque Lyrique in Paris, was nominated for a Fryderyk 2015 award for his 2CD album featuring works by Pasquale Anfossi, received a double nomination for the International Classical Music Awards 2022, became a laureate of the Fryderyk 2019 award for the recording of Hagith, an opera by Karol Szymanowski, is the recipient of a Gold Disc and won the 9th Polish National Choral Conductors Competition, where additionally he received a special prize for his diligent work on voice production with choirs.

Bartosz Michałowski is the founder, conductor, and Artistic Director of the Poznan Chamber Choir, one of the best ensembles of its kind in Poland. He is likewise the founder and Director of the Opus 966 Polish Composer Competition, and the author of Pisz muzykę – to proste! (Write Music – It’s Easy) composing workshops for children and young people. He is also a co-author of the Obrazogranie project organised as part of the Art for Children Biennale in Poznań.

As a conductor, Michałowski has garnered major prizes in reputable choral competitions as well as numerous special awards for, inter alia, the best vocal technique of an ensemble, the best performance of contemporary music, and the best conductor.

As the Choir Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir, he led – both in the Warsaw Philharmonic concert hall and outside of it – Szymanowski’s Kurpie Songs, Kodály’s and Gretchaninov’s Masses, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem, Haendel’s oratorio Messiah, Beethoven’s oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, Mendelssohn’s oratorio Paulus and Litanies of Ostra Brama by Moniuszko. In October 2017, as the Choir’s Director, he prepared the ensemble for a performance of the world premiere of Anton Rubinstein’s sacred opera Moses (cond. Michail Jurowski), while in 2019 - for the first performance and the first-ever recording of The Pariah opera by Stanisław Moniuszko in the Italian language version. In the preceding year the Choir took part in a project launched by the Polish Music Publishing House, 100 by 100 – Musical decades of freedom, and under his baton recorded Roman Padlewski’s Stabat Mater.

He also helped prepare dozens of vocal-instrumental concerts of the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, during which he collaborated with such eminent conductors as Andrzej Boreyko, Ton Koopman, Christoph König, Matthew Halls, Martin Haselböck, Bjarte Engeset, and Jacek Kaspszyk, as well as with Krzysztof Penderecki when performing his works, such as Seven Gates of Jerusalem, Credo, Polish Requiem, Te Deum, Dies Illa or Missa Brevis.

He has been invited to participate in prestigious festivals, such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music, Eufonie International Music Festival, the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, the Gaude Mater International Festival of Sacred Music, the International Grzegorz Gerwazy Gorczycki Festival, the Transatlantyk Festival, the Nostalgia Festival, the Wojciech Kilar Contemporary Music Festival, the Poznań Spring Contemporary Music Festival, the Musica Sacromontana Oratorio Music Festival, the Lower Silesia Music Festival, and the Mikołów Music Days.

To date, Michałowski has rehearsed and staged several hundred a capella pieces from all musical periods, and he has also collaborated regularly with renowned institutions and orchestras on performances of vocal-instrumental works. His output includes numerous first performances and recordings. He is invited to attend conferences on choral music and voice production, as well as joins the jury panels of choral competitions.

In addition to gaining a wealth of experience as a conductor, Bartosz Michałowski has spent many years working on enhancing his skills and knowledge in the field of voice production – he has completed master classes with Poppy Holden (Great Britain), Christian Elsner (Germany) and Józef Frakstein (Poland).

He holds a PhD from the Chopin University of Music.

Translation: Weronika Jarzyńska