Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir; Antoni Wit
Biography Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir; Antoni Wit
Warsaw Boys Choir
The Warsaw Boys’ Choir was established in 1990 at the suggestion of Professor Andrzej Chorosiński, the then Rector of the Warsaw Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music. The founder, artistic director and conductor of the choir is Krzysztof Kusiel-Moroz. In 1998 the Men’s Choir was established, composed of former members of the Boys’ Choir, currently students of high schools and universities. The Warsaw Boys’ and Men’s Choir gives approximately thirty concerts a year in Poland and abroad, with a broad repertoire ranging from the medieval to the contemporary. The choir has worked with conductors including Antoni Wit, Kazimierz Kord, Grzegorz Nowak, Jacek Kaspszyk, Yoav Talmi, Jerzy Semkow and Philippe Herreweghe, and with Krzysztof Penderecki, whose Passion, Utrenja and Credo remain a part of choir’s repertoire. There have been a number of international tours, collaboration with leading music institutions in Poland and many recordings.
Antoni Wit - Conductor
one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors, studied conducting with Henryk Czyz at the Academy of Music in Kraków. He then continued his musical studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He also graduated in law at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Immediately after completing his studies he was engaged as an assistant at the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra by Witold Rowicki.
After winning second prize in the International Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin (1971), he became an assistant conductor to the patron of that competition. Later he was appointed conductor of the Poznań Philharmonic, collaborated with the Warsaw Grand Theatre, and from 1974 to 1977 was artistic director of the Pomeranian Philharmonic, before his appointment as director of the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra and Chorus in Kraków, from 1977 to 1983. From 1983 to 2000 he was managing and artistic director of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, and from 1987 to 1992 he was the chief conductor and then first guest conductor of the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria.
In 2002 he became managing and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir. Since the season 2010/11, he has been first guest conductor with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra in Pamplona. His international career has brought engagements with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas and the Near and Far East. He has made over 200 records, including an acclaimed release for Naxos of the piano concertos of Prokofiev, awarded the Diapason d’Or and Grand Prix du Disque de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque. In January 2002 his recording of the Turangalîla Symphony by Olivier Messiaen (8.554478–79) was awarded the Cannes Classical Award at MIDEM Classic 2002.
In 2004 he received the Classical Internet Award. He has completed for Naxos a CD series of Szymanowski’s symphonic and large-scale vocal-instrumental works, each rated among ‘discs of the month’ by CD magazines (Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine). He also received the Record Academy Award 2005 of Japanese music magazine Record Geijutsu for Penderecki’s Polish Requiem (Naxos), and four Fryderyk Awards of the Polish Phonographic Academy. He has received six GRAMMY® nominations for Penderecki’s St Luke Passion in 2004 (8.557149), A Polish Requiem in 2005 (8.557386–87), Seven Gates of Jerusalem in 2007 (8.557766), Utrenja in 2009 (8.572031) and Karol Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater in 2008 (8.570724) and Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4 in 2009 (8.570722). In 2010 Antoni Wit won the annual award of the Karol Szymanowski Foundation for his promotion of the music of Szymanowski in his Naxos recordings. Antoni Wit is professor at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.
The National Orchestra of Poland
The first concert of Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra took place on November 5, 1901 in the newly built Philharmonic Hall. This inaugural concert was conducted by Emil Młynarski, co-founder, first music director and principal conductor of the Philharmonic. The soloist was the world-famous pianist, composer and future statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The program of this historic concert included Paderewski's Piano Concerto in A minor and works by other Polish composers: Chopin, Moniuszko, Noskowski, Stojowski and Żeleński.
In its early years, the Orchestra relatively quickly achieved a high level of professionalism, attracting outstanding soloists and conductors from all over the world. Before World War I and in the inter-war period, Warsaw Philharmonic was the main centre of musical activity in Poland and also one of the major musical institutions in Europe. Almost all the outstanding conductors and soloists of the day performed in Warsaw with the city's Philharmonic Orchestra, including Edward Grieg, Arthur Honegger, Otto Klemperer, Sergey Prokofiev, Sergey Rakhmaninov, Maurice Ravel, Artur Rodzinski, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Claudio Arrau, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Kempff, Arthur Rubinstein, Bronisław Huberman and Pablo Sarasate.
The first three International Chopin Piano Competitions (1927, 1932, 1937), in which the Orchestra participated, were held in Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, as well as the first International Wieniawski Violin Competition (1935) and the first Public Festival of Polish Arts (1937). Those events demonstrated Warsaw's active participation in European musical life.
After 38 years of prosperity, the outbreak of World War II brought the activities of the Philharmonic to a temporary halt. The Hall was bombed and partially burnt in the first days of September 1939 and completely destroyed by the end of the war. The orchestra lost 39 of its 71 players.
In the first years after the war, Olgierd Straszyński and Andrzej Panufnik were among the conductors of Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. In January 1950, Witold Rowicki was appointed director and principal conductor. He took it upon himself to organise a new ensemble. Despite the lack of its own hall (performances were organised in e.g. sports halls and theatres) and difficult working conditions, the Orchestra, due to Rowicki's effort, became a leading Polish ensemble.
On 21st February 1955, the new (rebuilt) Philharmonic Hall in Jasna St. was re-opened. It contained a concert hall holding an audience of more than one thousand, and a chamber music hall with 433 seats. On that day, Warsaw Philharmonic was granted the status of the National Philharmonic of Poland. This represented the status which the Philharmonic had achieved in Poland as the leading institution of its kind in the country.
Their first concert abroad took place at the 1951 International Youth Festival in Berlin and was followed by a tour of Romania in 1952. In October 1952, a "Choir Studio" under the auspices of the Philharmonic was established. This studio was the origin of the mixed choir, which appeared for the first time in a symphony concert with the Orchestra in May 1953. Since then, the Choir has received the name of the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir with a status of a fully professional ensemble. Also at that time the Warsaw Philharmonic started to promote its own chamber music series, which it still does today.
