One of the most versatile conductors of his generation, Łukasz Borowicz regularly leads the major European orchestras in the core Germanic repertoire as well as important Russian, Polish, Czech and Hungarian works. He conducts opera and has received numerous prizes for his over 80 recordings. From 2007 to 2015 he was Chief Conductor of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw, and in 2006 he was appointed Chief Guest Conductor of the Poznań Philharmonic, a title he retains.
In the 18/19 season Borowicz makes his debuts with Paris Opera (Les Huguenots), Hungarian National Orchestra and Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and leads a new production of Halka by Stanisław Moniuszko at Polish National Opera. He performs on tour with the Poznań Philharmonic, and returns to the Warsaw Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Janáček Philharmonic and Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy, as well as the orchestras in Katowice, Szczecin, Gdańsk and Łódź. Ongoing recording projects include a multi-disc recording of Anton Bruckner’s sacred music with RIAS Kammerchor and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin for Accentus, as well as a release of Hugo Alfven’s five symphonies with the Deutsche Symphonieorchester Berlin on CPO. He also records an album of cello concertos by exiled Jewish composers with Raphael Wallfisch and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Łukasz Borowicz has appeared as guest conductor with SWR Sinfonieorchester, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Hamburger Symphoniker, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Luzerner Symfonieorchester, Orchestre National de Lille, Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and a number of other orchestras and ensembles, including all the major Polish symphonies. Last season he made his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln and Bamberger Symphoniker. He has led concerts at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and Kissinger Sommer Festival, and has an ongoing relationship with the Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw, which has seen eleven rarely played operas recorded and released to date.
Borowicz made his operatic debut at Polish National Opera with Don Giovanni, which has been followed by over 130 performances at the house, including new productions of Orfeo ed Euridice, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Rite of Spring and Romeo and Juliet. In the 19/20 season he will direct a new production of Halka at Theater an der Wien. Further operatic credits include premieres of Zauberflöte, Rusalka, Dido and Aeneas, Blubeard’s Castle (Łódź), Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Halka and King Roger (Kraków), Eugene Onegin (Nantes) and King Roger (Bilbao).
A prolific recording artist with over 75 albums to his name, Borowicz’s recordings have been awarded three Diapason d’Or prizes. Symphonic recordings include the complete violin concertos by Grażyna Bacewicz for Chandos, the complete symphonic works by Andrzej Panufnik for CPO, and several titles for Hyperion. The final installment of the Panufnik cycle was selected as an Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine, and Borowicz received the ICMA Special Achievement Award in 2015 for his pioneering work on the cycle. In 2018 he received another ICMA award for his recording of Quo Vadis by Feliks Nowowiejski. His collaboration with Piotr Beczała on Deutsche Grammophon’s recording Heart’s delight – Songs of Richard Tauber was met with wide critical and public praise.
Born in Warsaw in 1977, Łukasz Borowicz graduated from the Frederic Chopin Music Academy, where he studied under Bogusław Madey. He received a doctorate in conducting under Antoni Wit. He has received the Polityka Passport Award (2008), Coryphée of Polish Music Award (2011), Norwid Award (2013) and Tansman Prize honouring an outstanding musical personality (2014).
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<em>Heroic performances from the LPO and Łukasz Borowicz</em>
— Bachtrack (May 2018)
<em>I had not previously seen the Polish conductor perform but I was impressed – by the unfussy attentiveness to score and soloist in Penderecki’s Concerto and by the lithe freedom of his interpretation and rendering of Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony (1944).</em>
— Seen and Heard International (May 2018)
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Kirill Petrenko has been chief conductor and artistic director of the Berliner Philharmoniker since August 2019.
Previously, he was general music director of Bayerische Staatsoper for seven years after first engagements in his career had taken him to the Vienna Volksoper, Meininger Staatstheater and the Komische Oper Berlin.
He has appeared as a guest at the Wiener Staatsoper, the Semperoper in Dresden, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Opéra Bastille in Paris. In 2013, he headed a new production of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival, which he conducted until 2015.
In the opening concert of his first season at the helm of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony – not least as a programmatic declaration of intent for the exploration of the core Classical-Romantic repertoire with which he intends to begin each season in the future. Unjustly neglected composers such as Josef Suk and Erich Wolfgang Korngold play an important role in his concerts. Kirill Petrenko has frequently conducted world premieres of symphonic works and operas in addition to key works of the 20th century and has also committed himself to contemporary music during his tenure in Berlin: following on from a piece by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, a number of works have been commissioned from contemporary composers.
By directing projects of the Karajan Academy and concerts of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, he is dedicating himself to the training of young musicians and introducing young people to different aspects of music.
At the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden, he will continue to conduct operas as well as concerts. Outside Berlin, Kirill Petrenko can also be seen on tour with the Berliner Philharmoniker, at festival venues such as Salzburg and Lucerne, the European music capitals and soon in Asia – and of course in the Digital Concert Hall.
In addition to concert recordings with music by John Adams and Gustav Mahler (Symphony No. 6), both as part of comprehensive presentations of the composers’ works, a CD/SACD edition has already been released with symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Franz Schmidt as well as Rudi Stephan’s Music for Orchestra; Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 Pathétique is still available as a single edition. Further releases of selected performances are in preparation.
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