Penderecki in Memoriam Podcast is produced and hosted by Max Horowitz, Crossover Media. Interview with Antoni Wit conducted by Raymond Bisha, Senior VP of Marketing at Naxos. This podcast is created by Anna Perzanowska and Klaudia Ofwona Draber, and presented by Polish Cultural Institute New York.

Penderecki in Memoriam Podcast unveils a multifaceted portrait of Krzysztof Penderecki, with commentary from musicians, colleagues, radio programmers, and writers who lend insight and memories of Poland’s greatest modern composer. This podcast is part of Penderecki in Memoriam Worldwide project, honoring the life and legacy of the great composer. Thank you to project partners DUX, NAXOS, Ludwig van Beethoven Association, and Schott EAM for sharing Krzysztof Penderecki’s music with the world.

Antoni Wit is one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors and a champion of Polish music. A top prizewinner at the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in 1971 and an assistant to Karajan at the Easter Festival in Salzburg, he subsequently worked with all of the leading orchestras in Poland (including the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra) before taking up the position of general and artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic in 2001 for twelve years until the end of the 2012–13 season. He was music director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra in Spain between 2013 and 2018, and he is currently conductor laureate of the Kraków Philharmonic in Poland. In 2015 he was awarded the French Légion d’honneur.

Antoni Wit has enjoyed an international career with major orchestras throughout Europe, America and the Far East. Past highlights have included the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony Orchestras as well as the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the China Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra among others.

For more information visit:

https://www.naxos.com/person/Antoni_Wit/32182.htm

Musical pieces in this podcast courtesy of NAXOS: Open and Close, Clarinet Quartet, Symphony #8, Polish Requiem, and St. Luke Passion.