Jakub Jakowicz - NOSPR

Present on stage since he was as young as 11, Jakub Jakowicz has performed with all the major Polish orchestras. In 1998, he was invited to the Krzysztof Penderecki Festival by the composer himself, to present his Capriccio per violino e orchestra, conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk. In 2001, Jakowicz debuted with the Munich Philharmonic conducted by Pinchas Steinberg, performing Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto. Since then, he has performed as a soloist with numerous renowned orchestras, including the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale in Florence, the Czech Philharmonic in Prague, the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, Orquesta Nacional in Madrid, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, and the Concerto Köln. He has worked with such conductors as Pinchas Steinberg, Jerzy Semkow, Antoni Wit, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Jacek Kaspszyk, Kazimierz Kord, Jan Krenz, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Eiji Oue, Marek Pijarowski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Agnieszka Duczmal, Michail Jurowski, and Marc Minkowski. In 2009 and 2011, Antoni Wit invited him to perform as a soloist on the Warsaw Philharmonic tours of Great Britain. As a chamber player, Jakub Jakowicz has formed a duo with his father, Krzysztof, their collaboration lasting many years already. He enjoys a recording partnership with the pianist Bartosz Bednarczyk, with whom he recorded the album Subito (Polish Radio), Beethoven Violin Sonatas (Subito Records), a CD with Witold Lutosławski’s Partita (CD Accord), and an album with chamber pieces by Franz Schubert (Polish Radio). Jakowicz has also performed with Heinz Holliger, Paavali Jumppanen, Garrick Ohlsson, Paul Gulda, Jan Krzysztof Broja, Michel Lethiec, Elina Vähäla, Anna Maria Staśkiewicz, Ruth Killius, Katarzyna Budnik, Avri Levitan, Tomoko Akasaka, Daniel Müller-Schott, Andrzej Bauer, Tomasz Strahl, Alexander Gebert, Rafał Kwiatkowski, Marcin Zdunik, Zvi Plesser, Timmo-Veikko Valve, Julius Berger, to name but a few. He has also worked with two string quartet: from 2008 to 2014, he played first violin with the Lutosławski Quartet, with whom he recorded Grażyna Bacewicz’s complete string quartets for the Naxos label. Since 2006, he has been a member of the Zehetmair Quartet, an ensemble founded by the Austrian violinist and conductor Thomas Zehetmair. Their album (ECM) with pieces by Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith was awarded the Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2007. Together, they have performed at such venues as the Berlin Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall in London, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Gulbenkian Center in Lisbon, Konzerthaus in Vienna, Zankel Hall and Y Hall in New York, as well as the famous festivals of Schleswig-Holstein, Salzburg, Lucerne, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh. In 2014, the ensemble received the prestigious Hindemith Prize of the City of Hanau. Jakub Jakowicz is a 2003 laureate of the „Paszport Polityki” award. In 2007, he received the „Orfeusz” award at the „Warsaw Autumn” festival. In 2018, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to popularising Witold Lutosławski’s music, he was awarded the Lutosławski Society Medal for the composer’s 100th birth anniversary. He is also a double winner of the Fryderyk award recognising major achievement in Polish recording industry. His forthcoming recordings include E. Chausson’s works with the pianist Paavali Jumppanen and the Lutosławski Quartet, as well as a recital of 20th-century Polish music with the pianist Łukasz Chrzęszczyk. Jakub Jakowicz holds the title of Doctor of Musical Arts. He teaches violin at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. He plays a Gand Brothers violin (Paris, 1859), courtesy of the Fondation Jerzy Semkow.