Polski Chór Kameralny
Polski Chór Kameralny is a full-time professional chamber choir of international standing. Founded in Gdansk in 1978 and since 1983 under the direction of Jan Łukaszewski it keeps going from strength to strength.
The declared aim of the 24 professional musicians making up the ensemble is to work at an instrumental, ‘orchestral’ level, which besides other skills requires total control of the vocal instrument, thus allowing all musical and technical demands of a score to be met. They ‘specialise in variety’ performing music from all genres and periods, a cappella or accompanied, sacred or profane, Gregorian chant, motets, opera, oratorio, film music, jazz, pop, etc. from medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music through Romantic and late Romantic to 20th and 21st century compositions. The world premiere performances sung by them are about to top the 620 mark and include works by such composers as Henryk Mikołaj Górecki and Krzysztof Penderecki, Wojciech Kilar, Augustyn Bloch, Krzysztof Meyer, Andrzej Koszewski, or Paweł Łukaszewski, and many more who have dedicated compositions to Polski Chór Kameralny. Frequent guests at some of the most renowned of international festivals they perform at events like the Warsaw Autumn, Ruhr-Festival, or TENSO Days. The number of their CD recordings, several winning awards like Orphée d’Or or Fryderyk (plus many more nominations) by 2016 had well exceeded 80. Countless radio and TV recordings in Poland, Europe (additionally some concerts as EBU live broadcasts), and North America complete the picture.
Polski Chór Kameralny prepares around 40 different programmes a year and co-operates with orchestras like NOSPR (Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra), the Polish Baltic Philharmonic, The Polish Chamber Philharmonic Sopot, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra “Amadeus”, The Academy of Ancient Music, Venice Baroque Orchestra, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and many more as well as with some of the cream of international choral conductors like Eric Ericson, Uwe Gronostay, Frieder Bernius, and Stephen Layton to name but a few.
Polski Chór Kameralny also organises its own music festivals, most notably, since 2006 they have been running their own annual 7-Day “Mozartiana” International Festival presenting Mozart’s Music in various guises and every year drawing thousands of visitors to the historic city centre of Gdansk, to Oliva Park, the Abbots’ Palace, and to Oliva Archcathedral.
