Sinfonia Varsovia - NOSPR

Sinfonia Varsovia has been an ambassador for Polish musical culture since its inception. For more than 40 years, the Orchestra has been a regular presence on concert stages in Poland and abroad. Its travels have brought countless encounters with conductors, composers, soloists and, above all, audiences.

The ensemble continues the tradition of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, founded by Jerzy Maksymiuk in 1972, from which it emerged following an expansion of the orchestra’s membership. The catalyst for this transformation was the arrival in Poland in 1984 of the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who soon accepted an invitation from directors Franciszek Wybrańczyk and Waldemar Dąbrowski to become the newly formed orchestra’s first guest conductor. ‘Working with no other orchestra has given me as much satisfaction as performing as a soloist and conductor with Sinfonia Varsovia,’ Menuhin remarked in interviews.

Over the years, Sinfonia Varsovia has given more than 4,000 concerts, performing in the world’s most prestigious concert halls under the baton of conductors including Claudio Abbado, Emmanuel Krivine, Witold Lutosławski, Lorin Maazel, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Krzysztof Penderecki (who served as the Orchestra’s music director and subsequently artistic director between 1997 and 2020), and alongside soloists such as Piotr Anderszewski, Martha Argerich, Alfred Brendel, Gidon Kremer, Yunchan Lim, Eric Lu, Nikolai Lugansky, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Maria João Pires and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Sinfonia Varsovia has recorded more than 300 albums, including releases on the Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, Sony and Warner labels. Its recorded repertoire spans music from the 18th century to the present day. Works by Polish composers occupy a particularly important place in the Orchestra’s concert programmes. The ensemble has given numerous world premieres of compositions by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Paweł Mykietyn and Krzysztof Penderecki, among others.

Sinfonia Varsovia, a cultural institution jointly run by the City of Warsaw and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, is the investor in a project to build a new music centre housing the largest concert hall in Poland. The project is funded by the City of Warsaw and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Janusz Marynowski has been the director of Sinfonia Varsovia since 2004.