Born in 1958, the eminent Polish pianist Waldemar Malicki graduated in 1981 with distinction from the Academy of Music in Gdansk, where he studied with the legendary Jerzy Sulikowski. He has performed in master-classes with Paul Badura-Skoda, Jörg Demus and Victor Merzhanov, was a prizewinner of the national Polish piano competitions in 1980 and 1982 in Warsaw and Slupsk, and was awarded First Prize at the Vienna Musikseminar in 1982. In great demand as a soloist for his remarkable virtuosity and musical intensity, he has performed throughout Europe, North and South America, Russia and Japan, and collaborated with distinguished Polish violinists and singers, including Teresa Zylis-Gara and Stefania Toczyska, in memorable performances of chamber music. Waldemar Malicki has recorded 35 CDs of solo and chamber works for Polskie Nagrania, Polton and Dux (Poland), Pavane (Belgium), Adda and Accord (France), Koch Records, Schwann and Wergo (Germany) as well as Pony Canyon (Japan). He has also recorded numerous piano concertos with the Polish Radio and Television Orchestras in Kraków and Katowice, and toured as soloist with a number of Polish orchestras. He has three times been awarded a Fryderyk, the Polish version of a Grammy. He is widely acclaimed for his outstanding master-classes in Scandinavia, North and South America and Japan, and is the author and solo performer of a popular Polish television series, programmes in which different musical phenomena are analyzed, often using improvisation as a means of illustration. He also performs recitals of piano improvisation in the virtuoso style of the nineteenth century, complete with light-hearted narration. The first President of the Paderewski Society, Waldemar Malicki is currently the Artistic Director of the Festival of Musical Humour in Southern Poland.

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

Antoni Wit is one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors and a champion of Polish music. A top prizewinner at the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in 1971 and an assistant to Karajan at the Easter Festival in Salzburg, he subsequently worked with all of the leading orchestras in Poland (including the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra) before taking up the position of general and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic in 2001 for twelve years until the end of the 2012–13 season. He was music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra in Spain between 2013 and 2018, and he is currently conductor laureate of the Kraków Philharmonic in Poland. In 2015 he was awarded the French Légion d’honneur.

Antoni Wit has enjoyed an international career with major orchestras throughout Europe, America and the Far East. Past highlights have included the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony Orchestras as well as the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the China Philharmonic Orchestra and The Cleveland Orchestra among others.

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 series of Szymanowski’s symphonic and large-scale vocal-instrumental works, each rated among ‘discs of the month’ by Gramophone magazine and BBC Music Magazine. He also received the Record Academy Award 2005 of Japanese music magazine Record Geijutsu for Penderecki’s A Polish Requiem (8.557386-87), and four Fryderyk Awards of the Polish Phonographic Academy. In 2012 he received a GRAMMY Award for Penderecki’s Fonogrammi, Horn Concerto and Partita (8.572482), and six other nominations for Penderecki’s St Luke Passion in 2004 (8.557149), A Polish Requiem in 2005, The 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.

He has recorded for Naxos all the symphonic works of Szymanowski, Lutosławski, Penderecki, Karłowicz, and other Polish composers. Wit studied conducting with Henryk Czyz at the Academy of Music in Kraków, continuing his musical studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He also graduated in law from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Antoni Wit was formerly a professor at music academies in Poland and Korea, and is now an honorary professor at Keimyung University in Daegu.