The Polish Chamber Choir Schola Cantorum Gedanensis

The Polish Chamber Choir, that has been existing for more than 30 years now, is one the worldwide known chamber choirs being completely professional. It was founded in 1978 by Ireneusz Łukaszewski, who handed over to his brother Jan Łukaszewski in 1983. The main interest of the 24 professional musicians lies on unaccompanied music, and especially on romanticism and contemporary music. Hence the countless compositions (written by among others: H. M. Górecki, W. Kilar, A. Bloch, K. Meyer, P. Łukaszewski) dedicated to the choir and that profusion (over 350) of world premiere performances. Besides that, mainly in oratorios and opera, Polish Chamber Choir regularly co-operates with many important symphonic and chamber orchestras, yet also with e.g. Sinfonia Varsovia, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Katowice, Academy of Ancient Music (Great Britain), Divino Sospiro (Portugal), Neue Düsseldorfer Hofmusik (Germany), Concilium Musicum Wien (Austria). A main stay of the choir’s musical work is their regular co-operation with guest conductors from all over the world: Eric Ericson, Uwe Gronostay [†], Frieder Bernius, Stephen Layton, and many others. Polish Chamber Choir frequently appears at international festivals, among them the Warsaw Autumn and Vratislavia Cantans, the Ruhr-Festival, the Rendez-vous musique nouvelle. Besides over 60 CDs, many of which have won grammophone prizes, Polski Chór Kameralny has recorded profusely for Polish and many European Radio and TV stations. One of their latest CD, Penderecki: Complete Choral Works (DUX 2009) recorded on the composer’s instigation puts them in a unique position of being the only ensemble worldwide counting in its repertoire the entire output of music for unaccompanied choir by Krzysztof Penderecki. Among the events conceived and organized by Polish Chamber Choir the most spectacular is the International Mozart Festival Mozartiana.