Ewa Pobłocka was born in the Polish city of Chełmno and had her first piano lessons at the age of five. She completed her diploma with distinction at the Staatlichen Musikhochschule in Gdańsk in 1981. She studied with Conrad Hansen in Hamburg and attended master courses with Jadwiga Sukiennicka, Rudolf Kerr and Martha Argerich, among others.

She has appeared with leading orchestras throughout the world including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Bayerischen Rundfunkorchester, and her catalogue of nearly 50 recordings have garnered praise.

As an international competition prizewinner, she has served on the jury of piano competitions and given master courses. She leads a piano class at the Musikakademie Bydgoszcz and is a guest lecturer at the Tokyo University of the Arts. In 2004 she won the annual prize of the Polish Ministry for Culture and National Heritage and was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of the Republic. http://www.poblocka.com

The first performance of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra took place on 5th November 1901 in the newly opened Philharmonic Hall under the artistic director and principal conductor Emil Młynarski, with the world-renowned pianist, composer and future statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski as soloist in a programme that included Paderewski’s Piano Concerto in A minor and works of other Polish composers, Chopin, Moniuszko, Noskowski, Stojowski and Żeleński. The orchestra achieved considerable success until the outbreak of war in 1939, with the destruction of the Philharmonic Hall and the loss of 39 of its 71 players. Resuming activity after the war, the orchestra was conducted by Straszyński and Panufnik, and in January 1950 Witold Rowicki was appointed director and principal conductor, organizing a new ensemble under difficult conditions.

In 1955 the rebuilt Philharmonic Hall was re-opened, with a large hall of over a thousand seats and a hall for chamber music, recognised as the National Philharmonic of Poland, with Bohdan Wodiczko as chief conductor. In 1958 Witold Rowicki was again appointed artistic director and principal conductor, a post he held until 1977, when he was succeeded by Kazimierz Kord, serving until the end of the centenary celebrations in 2001. From 2002 to 2013 Antoni Wit was the managing and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic – The National Orchestra and Choir of Poland. In 2013 Jacek Kaspszyk became the orchestra’s artistic director.

The orchestra has toured widely abroad (Europe, both Americas, Japan), in addition to its busy schedule at home in symphony concerts, chamber concerts, educational work and other activities. It now has a complement of 110 players. Recordings include works by Polish composers, Paderewski, Wieniawski, Karłowicz, Szymanowski, Penderecki, Lutosławski, Gorecki and Kilar, and by foreign composers, with acclaimed interpretations of works by Mahler and Richard Strauss.

Their releases have won many prestigious awards, including a GRAMMY in 2012 and six other GRAMMY nominations.

Photo: Dominik Skurzak

Kazimierz Kord began his musical studies in Poland, learning the piano, organ and cello, and subsequently studying piano with Nilsena at the Leningrad Conservatory, where he took the first prize in piano in 1955. He returned to Poland to continue his studies in conducting and composition (with the composer Artur Malawski), at the Kraków Conservatory from 1956 to 1960, and made his conducting debut at the Warsaw Opera in 1960. Two years later he was appointed as chief conductor at the Kraków Opera, where he also acted as the stage director for several productions, and in 1969 became chief conductor of the Polish National Radio and Television Orchestra based in Katowice, remaining in this post until 1973. Having made a highly successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1972, conducting Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades (the first production of a Russian opera to be performed in its original language at the Met), Kord made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1976 with another major work by Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin.

In 1977 he became chief conductor of Poland’s foremost orchestra, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, directing the orchestra until the end of its centenary celebrations in 2001. From the beginning of his period with the orchestra, with which he toured extensively, Kord worked to extend its repertoire, with the result that operas and oratorios were added to its programmes in addition to the more usual symphonic works. Kord was also an assiduous supporter of contemporary Polish composers, such as Lutosławski, Penderecki, Górecki and Kilar. After 2001 he was given the title of conductor laureate and continued to maintain close contact with the orchestra. He has also held a number of positions outside Poland, although he has not pursued the typical career of the itinerant maestro. Succeeding Ernest Bour, he was chief conductor of the South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra at Baden-Baden from 1980 to 1986; while in the USA he was principal guest conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1980 to 1982, and worked closely with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra of Orange County, California, between 1989 and 1991. He continues to return to conduct both of these orchestras.

Kord is very much in the traditional mould of the conductor who works predominantly with a single orchestra for an extended period of time, and achieves consistent music making of a very high, if not always spectacular, standard. His interpretations are deeply thought through, and achieve an excellent balance between technical polish and intensity of expression. His discography is not large, but contains a number of recordings of interest, including a finely-observed account for Decca of Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte, with Nicolai Ghiaurov in the title role.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).