OUR
ESTEEMED MAESTRO
Now in his eleventh season
as the Music Director and Conductor of the Riverside
Symphonia, MARIUSZ
SMOLIJ is
considered one of the most exciting conductors of
his generation. Praised by the New York Times for “compelling
performances,” he has led over 80 orchestras on
four continents appearing in some of the most prestigious
concert halls of the world.
In the United States
he conducted the major orchestras of Atlanta, Houston,
New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Rochester,
and Indianapolis, among many others. Internationally,
he enjoys notable reputation and has appeared
with the major symphonic ensembles of Germany, Italy,
France, Switzerland,
Holland, Israel, South Africa, Canada, Bulgaria,
Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Poland.
Maestro Smolij's engagements
in the current season include a collaboration with
the Sinfonieorchester Basel, Switzerland (CD recording
and series of concerts including the Tonehalle in
Zurich); a residency with Johannesburg Philharmonic,
South Africa; performances with the Florence Chamber
Orchestra in Italy and Israel Symphony Orchestra
as well as numerous orchestras in Germany and Poland.
Maestro Smolij is in his fourth season as the Music
Director of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra in Lafayette,
Louisiana and has served as the
Music Director of the Riverside Symphonia in New Jersey
since 1996.
For over a decade, Maestro Smolij was the permanent
conductor with acclaimed orchestras and musical institutions
in the United States and Europe. Between
2000 and 2003, at the invitation of Maestro Christoph Eschenbach, he served as
the Resident Conductor of the Houston Symphony, where he led the orchestra in
over one hundred concerts presenting an impressive and wide gamut of orchestral
repertoire. He served as the assistant conductor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra
(1994-1997) where he led the ensemble in over one hundred and twenty performances,
receiving the highest accolades from critics and public alike.
Maestro Smolij served on the faculty of the School of Music at Northwestern
University in Chicago-Evanston as a professor of conducting and director
of the chamber
orchestra from 1996 to 2000. At that time he was the youngest full-time conducting
faculty member among the top conservatories and universities in North America.
In Europe, Maestro Smolij is closely associated with one of Eastern Europe’s
most renowned orchestras, the Wroclaw (Breslau) Philharmonic in Poland. He has
been credited with restructuring the
season and with introducing innovative artistic concepts as well as new repertoire.
He has not only conducted this orchestra in Poland, but he successfully led it
during foreign tours in Germany (Rheingau Music Festival), Czech Republic (Janacek
May Festival), France (opening concerts in Strasbourg for “The Year of Polish
Culture”) as well as the United States (concerts in New York’s Lincoln Center
and Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, among others). Between 2002 and 2004 he presided
over the International Festival Wratislavia Cantans as only the fourth Artistic
Director in the 40 years history of this eminent institution.
In 2004 he appeared in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Rotterdam
Chamber Orchestra. In 2002 he made his Paris conducting debut with the
Orchestre des
Concerts Lamoureux in the prestigious Salle Gaveau and in 2001, he made his highly
acclaimed debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall with the Sinfonia Varsovia. His frequent
collaboration with this premier Polish orchestra led to concerts on three continents;
Europe, North America and Asia, and a series of recording projects featuring
masterworks of Polish and American symphonic music. The first CD with music by
Copland, Gershwin and Bernstein was released in July 2002, the second with music
by Andrzej Panufnik was issued by Naxos in early 2006.
The American Symphony Orchestra League in New York City named him to the
prestigious list of the most promising young conductors in America and featured
him during
its special Conductors Preview.
Maestro Smolij has introduced many American audiences to several unknown
works by Eastern European composers and regularly performs American orchestral
music
in Europe. In January 1996, he led the Polish Radio Orchestra in Krakow, Poland
in an all-American program, which was broadcast to several Eastern European countries.
In 2001, he led a special gala performance of American symphonic music in the
Hall of National Opera Theater in Warsaw, Poland that was recorded and broadcast
by both Polish and American radio stations. His recording of music by American
composer Bill Karlins was issued by the Hungaroton label in 2000. With the Wroclaw
Philharmonic he gave European and Polish premiers of works by American composers
such as Barber, Copland, Kernis, Rouse, Ellington and others. As an extremely
effective advocate and promoter of Polish music outside of his native country,
Maestro Smolij frequently performs and programs works of Polish composers and
organized the Polish Music Festival in Chicago in 1998, which was the single
largest
presentation of Polish music abroad in the last quarter of century.
Maestro Smolij’s reputation as a conducting pedagogue reaches both sides
of the Atlantic. He is a faculty member of the International Workshops for
Conductors
in the Czech Republic, teaches at professional conducting seminars in the USA
and Poland and was invited to present conducting master classes at the Zurich
Conservatory in Switzerland.
Born near Katowice, Poland, Maestro Smolij is an accomplished violinist and
was the founder and violinist of the internationally recognized Penderecki
String
Quartet, performing and recording with this ensemble in Poland, Germany, France,
Italy and the United States. After studies in Europe he studied conducting in
the United States, earning a doctorate degree from the Eastman School of Music.
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