On Stage:

Joanna Sobowiec-Jamioł – sopran

Polski Chór Kameralny

Jan Łukaszewski – dyrygent

Bogusław Grabowski – organy /Gdańsk/

THE POLSKI CHÓR KAMERALNY

Is part of a select group of the world’s elite fully professional chamber choirs. Its repertoire is remarkably extensive – ranging from a cappella music to large-scale oratorio, operatic, and symphonic works. The ensemble has given over 700 world premieres, including compositions by H.M. Górecki, W. Kilar, and K. Penderecki. It collaborates with the world’s finest orchestras and renowned choral conductors and has been invited numerous times to international music festivals. In addition to recording over 100 CDs, the Polish Chamber Choir has also recorded for both Polish and international radio and television stations. Its albums have received 32 Fryderyk Awards nominations and have won the prize six times. The ensemble is also a two-time winner of the Orphée d’Or – awards granted by the French Académie du Disque Lyrique for the best choral music recording. It is a member of TENSO, the European Network for Professional Chamber Choirs. The Polish Chamber Choir is the organizer of the International Mozart Festival “Mozartiana,” which this year will be held for the 20th time!

JAN ŁUKASZEWSKI

Recognized as one of Europe’s foremost specialists in the field of choral music. An outstanding conductor, respected pedagogue, and a distinguished figure in the organization of musical life, he has served as Director of the Polish Chamber Choir since 1983 and holds the title of Professor of Music Arts.

He has conducted such renowned orchestras as Sinfonia Varsovia, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, the Academy of Ancient Music, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and the Venice Baroque Orchestra. He has performed in nearly every European country, as well as in the United States, Canada, China, and Japan.

Łukaszewski is a member of the honorary committee of the ROMAETERNA Cantores association, alongside such distinguished figures as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Sir James MacMillan, Marcel Pérès, and Peter Dijkstra. He frequently serves as a juror for choral competitions in Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Wales, and Switzerland, as well as for composition competitions in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the UK.

He has been awarded numerous honors, including the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2018), the Gold Medal for “Merit to Culture Gloria Artis” (2023), the ZAiKS Board Award (2020), and the Golden Fryderyk Award (2021).

Jan Łukaszewski is also the originator of several major musical initiatives, including the International Choral Music Symposia, the Bach Days, and the International Mozart Festival “Mozartiana”, held annually in Gdańsk since 2006.

JOANNA SOBOWIEC-JAMIOŁ / „JOE”

Singer, coloratura soprano, lip trumpeter & fan of the whistle, choral conductor, awardee of the special award at the Bucharest International Jazz Competition (2021), and mum to four children. She graduated from the Academies of Music in Bydgoszcz and Gdańsk. Since 2011 she has been a member of the Les Femmes classical music ensemble (www.lesfemmes.pl) with which she has given over 500 concerts and stage performances. Since 2022 she has been leading and conducting the Chorus Nepomucensis choir in Kociewie. Joanna and her husband, violin player Piotr Jamioł, give concerts together and run music-filled home, where she used to hold the cycle of meetings called “Concerts at Kochanowskiego Street in Pruszcz Gdański” for many years. She has also come up with the idea of impersonating the Pomeranian treasures, i.e. the Medieval sculptures of the Antwerpian polyptych (1505). The initiative led to the creation of the Three Marys oratorio written by Anna Rocławska-Musiałczyk. She has cooperated and performed at concerts together with e.g. the Chamber Choir of the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, lute player Wanda Kozyra (France), Michał Jacaszek, organist Bogusław Grabowski, pianists: Ignacy Wiśniewski, Rafał Tworek, Arkadiusz Farkowski, Justyna Korpak, Sebastian Godziński, flutist Maja Miro-Wiśniewska, Choir 441 Hz, Goldberg Vocal Ensemble, and Cyprian Wieczorkowski/Lud Hauza Music Producers. Her last recordings include a CD with songs by Polish composers entitled “Pejzaż Polski” [‘Polish Landscape’], “W małym kinie” [‘At a Small Cinema Theatre’] by Les Femmes & Ignacy Wiśniewski Jazz Band, “Chrystyna z Nazaretu” [‘Christine of Nazareth’], and “4 Pieśni Gustava Holsta na głos, skrzypce i ścieżkę midi” [‘4 Songs by Gustav Holst for a solo voice, violin, and midi track’] in cooperation with Cyprian Wieczorkowski and Lud Hauza. In 2024 she made a guest recording for the “The Ebb & Flow” CD by Wojciech Dagiel and Jarek Grzesica.

BOGUSŁAW GRABOWSKI

Organist and composer born in 1955 in Sopot. Today, he is a full professor at the Stanisław Academy of Music in Gdańsk (aMuz), where he teaches e.g. organ performance, harmony in practice, liturgical accompaniment, organ improvisation, as well as the structure of the organ with musical acoustics. He is the founder of the Department of Church Music aMuz, which he headed for many years. Moreover, he gives lectures at numerous universities of the theological profile.

He is a specialist in organ designing, construction, and maintenance. He cooperates with many organ building companies, offering them consultations and preparing expert opinions. The instruments built to his own proprietary designs include e.g. the organ at the Department of Church Music aMuz, or the instrument at the Sanctuary of God’s Mercy in Gdańsk.

Before he became the chief organist at the St. Mary’s Co-cathedral Basilica in Gdańsk in 1985, he had been a member of the committee in charge of the project of constructing the organ in the Basilica (at the stage of technological acceptance of the instrument he was the head of the Polish body of the international commission which approved and accepted the built instrument).

He is an animator of musical life in Gdańsk and Pomerania, where he has already organized more than 1000 concerts within the framework of international festivals and concert cycles (e.g. the Organ Evenings at St. Mary’s, or Music at the Sanctuary of God’s Mercy in Gdańsk).

He is the director of the International Festival of the Organ, Choir and Chamber Music, held annually basis at St. Mary’s Basilica in Gdańsk.

He has given concerts at almost all major Polish centres of musical life, and abroad in Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the USA. He has recorded a dozen-or-so CDs of e.g. organ music (Poland, Germany, USA), and his own compositions featuring choirs and symphonic orchestras, as well as improvisations.