Professor Bogdan Gola

Choir­mas­ter, con­duc­tor and edu­ca­tor. He debuted as the choir leader of the Sile­sian Opera in Bytom (1976–1982). After that, he led the fol­low­ing choirs: at the J. Elsner Phil­har­monic in Opole, “Sile­sia” Song and Dance Ensem­ble, the Music Acad­emy in Katow­ice and the Teatr Wielki — Grand The­atre in War­saw. He estab­lished the “All Antico” Ancient Music Ensem­ble (1976–86), which spe­cialised in Renais­sance and Baroque music, and the “Sacri Con­cen­tus” Poly­phonic Choir which was affil­i­ated with the War­saw Music Soci­ety in 1993–1998. His range of inter­ests is very wide indeed: from Gre­go­rian mon­ody to the mon­u­men­tal works of Wag­ner and Penderecki.

The Teatr Wielki — Grand Opera Choir which he led in 1984–95 and has again been man­ag­ing since 1998 has won the never-ending acclaim of crit­ics and audi­ences at home and abroad (e.g., in Paris, Lon­don, Berlin, Moscow, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Peking or Hong-Kong). This choir’s supreme com­pe­tence has been recorded by Pol­skie Nagra­nia, Schwann Koch Inter­na­tional, Stu­dio Berlin Clas­sic, CPO, EMI, CD-ACCORD and also by TVP, ZDF, 3SAT and ARTE, Pol­ish radio broad­cast­ers and EBU. Bog­dan Gola has co-operated with many dis­tin­guished con­duc­tors, e.g., Jacek Kasp­szyk, Mark Minkowski, Jesus L. Coboz, Jan Krenz, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Antoni Wit, Kaz­imierz Kord, Krzysztof Pen­derecki and Placido Domingo. He has also co-operated on many opera pro­duc­tions with such well-known stage direc­tors as Kaz­imierz Kutz, Maria Foł­tyn, Mark Weiss-Grzesiński, Mar­iusz Tre­liński and Krzysztof War­likowski. In 1988–89 he co-operated with stage con­duc­tor Robert Satanowski and the out­stand­ing stage direc­tor August Everd­ing in the pro­duc­tion of Wagner’s “Ring”.

When plan­ning his con­cert pro­grams Bog­dan Gola reaches not only for well-known ora­tory and choir works but also for ancient, for­got­ten can­zon­alles, codes and scores of the mas­ters of Pol­ish baroque and roman­tic music (J. Elsner, F. Gotschalk, S. Moniuszko, J. Ste­fani, J. Wański, J. M. Żebrowski, I, Reimann). He has pre­pared archival record­ings of these pro­grams for TVP2 in co-operation with the “Con­certo Avenna” Cham­ber Orches­tra and lead­ing Pol­ish singers. In addi­tion to his artis­tic work Bog­dan Gola also teaches. He began to teach at the K. Szy­manowski Music Acad­emy in Katow­ice in 1979. In 1986 he moved to the Fry­deryk Chopin Acad­emy of Music in War­saw where he is a mem­ber of the fac­ulty at the Depart­ment of Music Edu­ca­tion. He was Vice-Dean of the Depart­ment in 1998–2004 and is now full pro­fes­sor respon­si­ble for the train­ing of choir con­duct­ing adepts. He was nom­i­nated tit­u­lar pro­fes­sor of musi­cal arts in 2001. His artis­tic and edu­ca­tional work has won him a Glo­ria Artis Sil­ver Medal. Many of Pro­fes­sor Bog­dan Gola’s for­mer stu­dents now hold sig­nif­i­cant posts at all lev­els of music edu­ca­tion, in var­i­ous cul­tural insti­tu­tions and the pub­lic media.

He is head of the Chair of Choir Con­duct­ing for term 2008–2012.