Wojciech Michniewski

Conductor and composer, especially valued for his interpretations of contemporary music.

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Wojciech Michniewski, photo: Jan Rolke/Forum

He was born on 4th April 1947 in Łódź. At the State Higher School of Music in Warsaw, he studied conducting under Stanisław Wisłocki and music theory and composition under Andrzej Dobrowolski. In 2009, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting at the Academy of Music in Kraków.
Together with Krzysztof Knittel and Elżbieta Sikora he formed the KEW composer group. His piece Szeptet for 2 sopranos, 2 mezzo-sopranos, 2 altos and a bodybuilder (Whisperetto, 1973) won the Italian Radio and Television Premio RAI award in 1975. In addition, in 1974 he won an honourable mention at the National Conducting Competition in Katowice, in 1977 – 1st prize and Gold Medal at the Guido Cantelli International Conducting Cofrerfmpetition at the Teatro alla Scalla in Milan and in 1978 – Bronze Medal at the Ernest Ansermet International Conducting Competition in Geneva.

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Wojciech Michniewski, photo: Krzysztof Jarczewski / Forum

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From 1973 to 1978 Wojciech Michniewski was associated with the National Philharmonic, initially as an assistant conductor and from 1976 as a conductor. From 1979 to 1981, he was the artistic director of the Grand Theatre in Łódź, whilst at the same time (until 1983) he held the position of music director of the contemporary stage in the Warsaw Chamber Opera. From 1984 to 1987 he was a permanent guest conductor of the Polish Chamber Orchestra, playing an important role in its transformation into the now-famous Sinfonia Varsovia, whilst from 1987 to 1991 he headed the Poznań Philharmonic as its general and artistic director. After 1991, although he received proposals for permanent collaboration from various orchestras, he has only been a guest conductor.

Michniewski is a very versatile conductor; he conducts both symphonic concerts and opera performances, and apart from the classical repertoire, he is particularly valued for his interpretations of contemporary music. He has conducted in almost all European countries, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Hong Kong, the United States and Cuba. He has performed in such halls as the Berlin Philharmonic, Schauspielhaus in Berlin, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Barbican Hall in London and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. He has taken part in many international music festivals.

In 1975, Wojciech Michniewski received the Orfeusz Critics’ Award for the best performance of a Polish work at the Warsaw Autumn Festival (Psychodrama by Tadeusz Baird) and in 1987, the critics’ prize at the Musikbiennale Berlin. He still willingly cooperates with leading Polish ensembles – the National Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Grand Theatre, where he conducted performances of, amongst others, Elżbieta Sikora’s operas (The Heartbreaker, 1995), Roxanna Panufnik (The Music Programme, 2000), Paweł Mykietyn (The Ignorant and the Madman, 2001; Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 2006), Benjamin Britten (Curlew River, 2005), Leos Janaček (Notes from the One Who Disappeared, 2006), Aleksandra Gryka (Alpha Kryonia Xe, 2006), Dobromiła Jaskot (Phaedra, 2006), as well as the ballet performance And the Rains Will Pass to the music of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (2011).

Michniewski Wojciech portret forum.jpg — Wojciech Michniewski, photo: Eugeniusz Helbert / Forum

He has made many recordings for disc, radio and television. In 1996 he received the prestigious Polish Phonographic Industry Award 'Fryderyk' for the album with Witold Lutosławski’s music, recorded with Krzysztof Jakowicz and the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra. In 1999, the same award went to another of his albums – Rossini’s gala concert with Ewa Podleś, whilst in 2004, a CD with his interpretations of music by Mieczysław Karłowicz and Wojciech Kilar was nominated. In 2013, the DVD recording of Madame Curie received the 'Orpheus' award from the French Académie du Disque Lyrique (Prix Charles Münch – L'Orphée du Prestige Lyrique de L'Europe).

In 2005, Wojciech Michniewski received the Polish Composers' Union Award 'for his long-term and creative accompaniment of Polish contemporary music' and the Silver Medal 'Gloria Artis for Merit to Culture'. Since 2009, he has lectured at the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.

Wojciech Michniewski studied music theory, conducting and composition. Although he did not finish his composition studies, he took composing quite seriously. From 1973 to 1976, he collaborated with Krzysztof Knittel and Elżbieta Sikora, forming a composer group with them called KEW. From this period comes Michniewski’s best-known work, Whisperetto, for which he received the Italian Radio and Television award – Premio RAI – in 1975. However, he soon stopped composing. Why? The composer-conductor answers:

Primarily due to lack of time, but also as a result of my lifestyle. There are composers who do not need special concentration to write their works. They can sit at the table for two hours a day, doing all sorts of other things for the rest of the day. They have an intense artistic, political and social life. I cannot do that at all. Whenever I composed, I had to withdraw from everything, to isolate myself from the world in order to come to terms with myself, to produce an inner silence in which I could hear what I had to say. The responsibilities that fell upon me when my career as a conductor began to take off did not allow for this. In my life, which is constantly hectic, this silence does not exist.

He had to make a choice:

Every choice is sad, there are no optimal choices. I love very much what I do and I‘m comfortable with it. I have moments when I would like to write something, but right now that’s unrealistic. Maybe at a later time? I think I will still write something new one day.

Contemporary music, however, occupies an important place in Wojciech Michniewski’s conducting activities:

Not only do I not avoid this music, but I am very eager to deal with it. For me, as an artist, it is intriguing, as one has to work intensely and in many directions to read it properly. Most often, there are no models, it is performed for the first time, and finding its musical, stylistic, intellectual content requires – I think – more imagination than referring to an already existing style of interpreting music – for example, that of Beethoven. These are two different adventures. And I understand well such conductors or musicians who do not like or do not want to come into contact with contemporary music. It requires a really special approach. But I think that dealing with contemporary music is in a way more creative. It’s much more difficult to get to its essence, to grasp what the composer meant. You can easily follow a false aesthetic track.

Besides, contemporary music is more difficult for performers, both for the conductor and the instrumentalist, from a purely technical point of view. It requires perfect mastery of the entire technical repertoire of classical music, and, moreover, it employs other means of performance. An instrumentalist who wants to play contemporary music well has to go through a similar ordeal that Grotowski used to require from actors – to master to perfection every available technique, in order to then discard it, forget about it and gain full freedom in controlling the playing apparatus. The fact that I dealt with composition makes my contact with contemporary music easier. I think, by the way, that a conductor who did not put notes on paper at all is worse off with any music. In my times every student of conducting had to write a bit. Even if it was only instrumentation, you had to put some notes on paper. It was very informative.

However, Wojciech Michniewski does not limit himself to contemporary music:

Definitely not. My repertoire contains almost everything. I don’t touch early Baroque music, Monteverdi, even Bach, and sometimes I have doubts about early classicism. This music requires faithfulness to the performance style of the era. Special studies are a must, it should be dealt with by specialised ensembles with conductors working with them constantly. Performing music of those times today in the way it was done in the past is unbearable. Only sometimes I decide to play something from the Baroque.

Quotes from Studio magazine, 1997, no. 9.

Selected compositions:

Etiuda for percussion and one soloist (1972)
Cadenza for solo violin (1972)
Trzy pieśni do słów siostry for soprano and piano (1972)
Intermezzo for soprano and chamber orchestra (1973)
Szeptet for 2 soprano, 2 mezzosoprano, 2 alto and body builder (1973)
Moje konstrukcje liryczne for instrumental ensemble (1974)
Małe wariacje na temat Mozarta for clarinet, trombone, cello, piano and electronic devices (1974)
Litania for flute, harp and electronic devices (1974)
Michniewski / Gounod: Wedding Tango dla Kasi i Koreczka for voices, string quartet and bandoneon (2000)

Originally written in Polish by Małgorzata Kosińska, Polish Music Information Centre, Polish Composers' Union, February 2002, updated: July 2016, AG, translated to English by PG, Dec 2021, edited by AZ.

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