Formidable!

Amsterdam Sinfonietta

Maria Włoszczowska

Polish violinist Maria Włoszczowska is recognised for her versatile musicianship, performing as soloist, director/concertmaster, and chamber musician.

Maria began the 2022/23 season with her solo debut at the BBC Proms performing Kaija Saariaho’s Vers toi qui es si loin with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Dinis Sousa. As Leader of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, she also directs a number of programmes; one of this season’s highlights includes directing and performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Further afield, Maria makes her Hong Kong debut at the Hong Kong Musicus Festival and joins the violin faculty at Yellow Barn, Vermont.

Last season, Maria gave her New York recital debut at 92NY with Jeremy Denk performing all six Bach Sonatas for violin and keyboard and they return together this season to the Lammermuir Festival.

She appears regularly at the Wigmore Hall and at international festivals such as Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland, Lammermuir Festival and IMS Prussia Cove as well as a residency at Yellow Barn.  Distinguished artists such as Jeremy Denk, Bengt Forsberg and Dinis Sousa have joined her in recital and other chamber music partners have included Thomas Adès, Alasdair Beatson, Philippe Graffin, Benjamin Grosvenor, Steven Isserlis, Steven Osborne, Hyeyoon Park, Timothy Ridout and the Doric String Quartet.  This season also sees the launch of the Valo Quartet, which she leads; they make their debut appearance in Brussels under the auspices of the Festival Resonances.

Recent seasons have seen projects as a guest leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and solo appearances with UK and international ensembles, including symphonic and chamber orchestras in her home country of Poland.   This season, Maria returns to Leipzig to appear as soloist with Reinhard Goebel and the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum at the Gewandhaus.

Recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Emily Anderson Prize, the Hattori Foundation Senior Award and Poland’s Minister of Culture and National Heritage Prize, she based herself in the UK after completing her studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Hungarian violinist and conductor András Keller. In 2018 she won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the XXI Leipzig International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition.

Maria plays on a violin by Francesco Stradivari.

Artist website: www.mariawloszczowska.com

Thomas Oliemans, bariton

Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans has established himself in recent years on leading international opera, concert and festival stages as a singer of outstanding musicality, intelligence and compelling stage presence. His debut at the Metropolitan Opera New York last season as Papageno was highly acclaimed by the critics: ‘a singular Papageno’ (New York Times) and ‘the star of the show’ (New York Classical Review).

The season 2023-24 will see his returns to De Nationale Opera Amsterdam as Father-in- Law in Saahiaroh’s Innocence and as Papageno/Die Zauberflöte as well as to Staatsoper Berlin in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Melancholie des Widerstands. He will also appear in recitals at Oxford Lieder Festival together with pianist Hans Eijsackers and in the Netherlands, accompanying himself on the paino.

Thomas Oliemans has appeared at Metropolitan Opera New York, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Staatsoper Berlin, Staatsoper Hamburg, De Nationale Opera Amsterdam, the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the English National Opera, Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, Göteborg Opera, the Salzburger Festspiele, Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Opéra National du Rhin and Grand Théâtre de Genève in repertoire that spans from Mozart to the 21st century like Papageno/Die Zauberflöte, Figaro, Il Conte di Almaviva/Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo, Don Alfonso/Cosi fan tutte, Mr. Redburn/Billy Budd, Schaunard, Marcello/La Bohème, Faninal/Der Rosenkavalier, Peter Besenbinder/Hänsel und Gretel, Valmont/Quartet (Francesconi), Le Témoin/L’Apokalypse Arabe (Odeh-Tamimi), Pluto/Eurydice – Die Liebenden blind (Trohjahn), Bill/Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Hamlet/Hamlet, Gonsalvo Fieschi/Die Gezeichneten, Lescaut/Manon Lescaut, Eisenstein/Die Fledermaus, Harlekin/Ariadne auf Naxo, Gunther/Die Götterdämmerung, Donner/Das Rheingold and Kothner/Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Thomas Oliemans has had the pleasure to collaborate with conductors and ensembles such as Daniel Barenboim, Ivor Bolton, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Natalie Stutzmann, Raphaël Pichon, Marc Albrecht, Hartmut Haenchen, Antonello Manacorda, Peter Dijkstra, Markus Stenz, Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan, Simone Young, Karina Canellakis, Vasily Petrenko, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Pygmalion and Amsterdam Sinfonietta.

His extensive concert repertoire encompasses Bach’s Passions, Shostakovich’s Michelangelo-Suite and Symphony no 14, Gustav Mahler‘s Das Lied von der Erde, all his orchestral song cycles as well as his Symphony no 8, Mendelssohn’s Elias, Richard Danielpour’s Elegies, Beethoven‘s Symphony no 9, Zemlinsky’s Lyrische Sinfonie, Larcher’s Alle Tage and Frank Martin’s Jedermann-Monologe. Recently he performed Matthias Pintscher’s Shirim together with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by the composer, and Hawar Tawfiq’s Requiem des Fleurs et des Nuages with Philharmonie Zuidnederland.

A sought-after recitalist, he has appeared in Oxford, Cambridge, Vienna, Zürich, Stuttgart, Basel, Antwerp, London (Wigmore Hall), New York, Toronto, Tokyo and Paris with pianists Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Graham Johnson and Paolo Giacometti. His repertoire includes the great song cycles by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf and Mahler, french repertoire from Caplet to Fauré, Debussy, Poulenc and Ravel up to numerous works of the 21st century.

Thomas Oliemans is a regular guest at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and was artist in resident there last season. Highly praised by critics and public are his solo recitals of Schubert’s Winterreise accompanying himself on the piano. In preparation for these recitals he recorded a 25 episodes podcast on behalf of the Concertgebouw. Together with dutch journalist and moderator Gijs Groenteman he presents the cycle with its musical, literary and emotional aspects to the public.

He curated the 2019 Delft Chamber Music Festival and was on the Jury of the 2019 International Vocal Competition s’Hertogenbosch, where he also appeared in recital with Graham Johnson and gave a masterclass. He was also invited to give masterclasses at the Operastudio of the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam and most recently at the Academia Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Recordings include the album Formidable! dedicated to French Chanson, with Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Schumann’s Dichterliebe and song cycles op 89 and 90, Mendelssohn’s Elias with Akamus Berlin and the RIAS Kammerchor under Hans-Christoph Rademann, works by Frank Martin for baritone with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Brahms’ Requiem together with Residentie Orkest and Jan Willem de Vriend as well as with Flemish Rado Choir and Bart van Reyn, Schubert’s three song cycles, several volumes of songs by Poulenc and Fauré with Malcolm Martineau, Christus in Bach’s Johannes-Passion with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Frans Brüggen and Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Gordan Nikolic. In August 2023 a new CD of Brahms’ Die schöne Magelone together with Malcolm Martineau was released by Linn Records.