Piotr Wacławik - NOSPR

A conductor who has collaborated with internationally renowned soloists, including Ivo Pogorelić, Bomsori Kim and Yulianna Avdeeva, as well as with orchestras across Europe, America and Asia.

In the 2024/2025 season, he served as Assistant Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, having won an international competition for a place on the orchestra’s prestigious fellowship programme. He also held the position of Assistant Conductor at the Warsaw Philharmonic (2022–2024 and 2025/2026) and at the Aspen Music Festival and School (2024), where he was awarded the Aspen Conductor Prize. From the 2026/2027 season, following his success in a competitive selection process, he will take up the position of Assistant Conductor of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice (NOSPR).

He has won prizes at numerous conducting competitions, including:

- Third Prize at the 7th Witold Lutosławski National Competition for Young Conductors (2022);

- First Prize at the Atlantic Coast International Conducting Masterclass and Competition (2019);

- First Prize at the London Classical Soloists International Conducting Masterclass and Competition (2018);

- Third Place at the 1st Athens International Conducting Masterclass and Competition (2019);

- Second Prize and the Symphony Orchestra Prizes at the 2nd Adam Kopyciński National Competition for Conducting Students in Wrocław (2017).

He also received a non-staturoty prize at the 10th Jeunesses Musicales International Conducting Competition in Bucharest (2019). That same year, he made his US debut at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he received the Robert Spano Conducting Award in both 2019 and 2022.

He has honed his skills under the guidance of distinguished conductors and teachers, including Jorma Panula, Leonard Slatkin, Alan Gilbert, Michail Jurowski, Cristian Măcelaru, Robert Spano and Mark Stringer. He also worked with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich as part of the 10th International Conducting Masterclass led by David Zinman.

He made his conducting debut at the age of 19 with the Silesian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. In the 2019/2020 season, he served as Conductor-in-Residence at the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic and held the same position at the Świętokrzyska Philharmonic in the 2022/2023 season. He also worked as Assistant Conductor at the Silesian Opera (2019/2020) and Kraków Opera (2020–2022).

In 2020, he graduated with honours from the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice, where he studied symphonic and operatic conducting under Professor Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk and viola da gamba with Krzysztof Firlus. He also studied viola da gamba with such distinguished musicians as Paolo Pandolfo, Vittorio Ghielmi and Petr Wagner. He collaborates with the early music ensemble Echo, with which he won a Fryderyk Award in 2026 in the Phonographic Debut of the Year category for the ensemble’s debut album. Prior to his university studies, he studied violin at the Wojciech Kilar State Music Schools Complex in Katowice. He is currently an assistant lecturer in the Department of Symphonic and Operatic Conducting at his alma mater.