Professor Marek Pijarowski

Born in 1951 in Wrocław. At Sec­ondary Music School he learnt to play a few instru­ments, e.g. piano (main instru­ment), vio­lin, oboe and organ. He com­pleted his stud­ies in con­duct­ing at the Acad­emy of Music in Wrocław under Tadeusz Stru­gała (diploma with hon­ours) and he was sup­ple­ment­ing them in the period of 1971–1973 at the Inter­na­tional Music Courses in Weimar under the late Arvid Jan­sons, out­stand­ing Russ­ian con­duc­tor. In 1977 he obtained the Aus­trian gov­ern­ment schol­ar­ship and he spent nine months in Vienna, mas­ter­ing his skills under Prof. Carl Oester­reicher in the famous Hoch­schule für Musik und Dar­stel­lende Kunst. In the same year he had an oppor­tu­nity to directly wit­ness the art of con­duct­ing of such mas­ters of the baton as: Kara­jan, Bern­stein, Mehta, Solti or Abbado.

He started his full-time work in 1974 as the conductor’s Assis­tant at the Wrocław Phil­har­monic. In Decem­ber that year he took part in the All-Poland Con­duct­ing Com­pe­ti­tion in Katow­ice, where (being its youngest par­tic­i­pant) he won the 1^st Prize and the Spe­cial Prize of the Sile­sian Phil­har­monic. This suc­cess resulted in numer­ous invi­ta­tions, e.g. to the National Phil­har­monic and the Great Sym­phony Orches­tra of the Pol­ish Radio. In 1975 he was given the post of the 2nd Con­duc­tor and in 1980 he was appointed Gen­eral and Artis­tic Direc­tor of the Wrocław Phil­har­monic, which he headed until 2002. He also coop­er­ated with the Kraków Phil­har­monic as the 1st Con­duc­tor, and he is still con­nected with the Pomeran­ian Phil­har­monic in Byd­goszcz as the per­ma­nent Guest Con­duc­tor of this ensem­ble. In the period of 2002–2005 he was Artis­tic Direc­tor at the A. Rubin­stein Phil­har­monic in Łódź. From the sea­son of 2006/2007 he started close artis­tic coop­er­a­tion with the A. Malawski Phil­har­monic in Rzeszów. At present he also holds the func­tion of the 1^st Con­duc­tor of the Sym­phony Orches­tra at the Poz­nań Philharmonic.

He has been active as a con­duc­tor for over 30 years unin­ter­rupt­edly, giv­ing con­certs with all phil­har­monic and radio orches­tras in Poland. Many times he also con­ducted con­certs with Pol­ish ensem­bles abroad, e.g. with the National Phil­har­monic (Ger­many), National Sym­phony Orches­tra of the Pol­ish Radio (Spain, Paris), the Kraków Phil­har­monic (France), Sin­fo­nia Varso­via (Spain), the Łódź Phil­har­monic (Italy, Spain) and was on numer­ous tours with the Wrocław Phil­har­monic in such coun­tries as Spain, France, Italy, Ger­many, the Nether­lands. He did many archive record­ings for the Pol­ish Radio. He was a per­ma­nent con­duc­tor at the East­ern Music Festi­val in Gre­ens­boro, USA. At present he coop­er­ates with the Pres­i­den­tial Orches­tra in Ankara and with the Texas Music Festi­val in Hous­ton. He con­ducted in most Euro­pean coun­tries and in Egypt, Israel, Canada, China, USA, Mex­ico and South Korea.

In the period of 1980–2000 he held the func­tion of Artis­tic Direc­tor of the Fes­ti­val of the Pol­ish Con­tem­po­rary Music In Wrocław. Between 1986 and 1987 he was also Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tional Chopin Fes­ti­val in Duszniki.

For many years he has been con­nected with the K. Lip­iński Acad­emy of Music in Wrocław, where he runs the class of con­duct­ing. He also held the func­tion of Vice-Rector of this Acad­emy. In Octo­ber 2006 he took up the post of Pro­fes­sor of con­duct­ing at the Fry­deryk Chopin Uni­ver­sity of Music. The Min­is­ter of Sci­ence and Higher Edu­ca­tion entrusted him with the func­tion of the national expert while deter­min­ing stan­dards of the cur­ric­ula for con­duct­ing studies.

His grad­u­ates are prize win­ners at many con­duct­ing com­pe­ti­tions In Poland and abroad. He is a jury mem­ber at the Inter­na­tional G. Fitel­berg Con­duct­ing Com­pe­ti­tion in Katow­ice and Head of the jury at the Inter­na­tional W. Lutosławski Review of the Young Con­duc­tors in Białystok.

In  1997 he was obtained the title of pro­fe­sor sztuki muzy­cznej con­ferred by the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Poland.

He was dec­o­rated with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polo­nia Resti­tuta and with the Glo­ria Artis Order, and others.