Arkadiusz Bialic - NOSPR

Polish organist, soloist and chamber musician, artist and curator of the organ of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, holder of a habilitation degree in musical arts, and professor at the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków and the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

He graduated from the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków in 2000 with distinction, having studied organ with Professor Józef Serafin. He subsequently studied with Professor Zsigmond Száthmary at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, where he received his Künstlerische Ausbildung diploma in 2001, and with Professor Daniel Roth at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main, completing his Konzertexamen in 2003.

A prize-winner at international organ competitions in Poland, France and Switzerland, in 2002 he became the first Pole in history to win a prize at the international Grand Prix de Chartres organ competition, receiving the Second Grand Prix in the Interpretation category.

As a soloist, he has appeared at numerous prestigious festivals, including Grande Musica in Chiesa in Rome, Warsaw Autumn and Grand Orgue de Chartres. He has worked with distinguished conductors including Marin Alsop, Łukasz Borowicz, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Krzysztof Urbański and Antoni Wit, and with orchestras including the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra and Sinfonietta Cracovia.

He has made numerous radio and album recordings, among which particularly notable are Feliks Nowowiejski’s oratorio Quo Vadis, recorded with the Warmia and Mazury Philharmonic Orchestra under Piotr Sułkowski (DUX, 2017); the first Polish recording of Olivier Messiaen’s La Nativité du Seigneur (DUX, 2019); César Franck Organ Works, Vol. I (Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music Publishing House, 2022); and Andrzej Krzanowski’s Reliefs, featuring Relief III for solo organ (ANAKLASIS/PWM, 2022), an album which received a Fryderyk Award in 2023. He has also given world premieres of works by Polish composers, including Wojciech Widłak’s Wziemięwzięcie, Dariusz Przybylski’s Hallucination II and Grażyna Pstrokońska-Nawratil’s Okeanos.

His repertoire ranges from Renaissance music to the latest works and includes the complete organ works of J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, J. Brahms, C. Franck and M. Duruflé. French symphonic organ music and contemporary music hold a particularly important place in his extensive and diverse repertoire.

Arkadiusz Bialic combines his artistic and teaching career with organisational work and an active involvement in musical life. An expert in organ building and a jury member at organ competitions, he gives guest lectures and masterclasses in organ performance, the history and construction of the organ, and cultural management. From 2014 to 2020, he was Artistic and Organisational Director of Organ Music Days, Kraków’s oldest music festival, which he saved from closure together with the Bronisław Rutkowski Ars Organi Foundation, established by him for this purpose. From 2017 to 2019, he served as Artistic Director of the early music Kromer Biecz Festival, which in 2019 was nominated for the prestigious Coryphaeus of Polish Music Award in the Event of the Year category.