Meet Tomasz Golka

[bio from Tomasz Golka web site]
"There were beautiful and exciting things in the playing: Golka displayed an understanding of the complementary roles of momentum and elasticity in [Richard] Strauss’s music," writes Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe. "Babbitt’s 'From the Psalter' is as complicated and striking in meter, language, and emotional directness as the texts. The string orchestra under Golka played it confidently, and Golka achieved a Mozartian transparency."

Since winning First Prize at the 2003 Eduardo Mata International Conducting Competition, 32-year-old conductor Tomasz Golka has appeared with orchestras in the Americas and Europe to great critical acclaim, and he currently holds title positions with three orchestras, on two continents.

Now in his second year as Music Director of Lubbock Symphony Orchestra and in his first as Music Director of Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, Golka has recently been named Principal Guest Conductor of Orquesta Sinfonica de Concepción in Chile.

In the US, Golka has appeared with the symphony orchestras of Seattle, Fort Worth, Charleston, Louisville, and Spoleto Festival USA. He has also appeared with Buffalo Philharmonic, where he replaced the ailing scheduled conductor on just a few hours' notice and led the orchestra in an enthusiastically received performance.

As a conducting fellow at the 2006 Tanglewood Music Festival, Golka worked with James Levine, shared the podium with Bernard Haitink, and conducted a historic performance of Stravinsky's "Soldier's Tale" with legendary composers Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and John Harbison as narrators.

He made his European debut in his birth city (Warsaw, Poland) conducting Sinfonia Varsovia in National Symphony Hall with his brother, pianist Adam Golka, as soloist. Tomasz Golka has served as Cover Conductor for the Cleveland Orchestra as well as the Houston and Dallas symphony orchestras.

Golka has toured Mexico several times, appearing with virtually all of the country's top orchestras, including those of UNAM, Xalapa, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Aguascalientes, and Yucatan.

As an operatic conductor, his recent credits include Die Fledermaus and Madama Butterfly. An avid supporter of living composers, Golka recently premiered the Symphony of Mathew Fuerst, a work written especially for the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra.

Past positions held by Golka include Music Director of the Ball State Symphony Orchestra and Opera and the Bakersfield Youth Symphony (2003-04), Founder and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music at All Saints (2000-02) and the Bloomington Chamber Orchestra (1998-99), and as a violinist, Concertmaster of Spoleto USA Festival Orchestra and the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra (1999-2000).

Golka, who lives in New York City, studied conducting with David Effron at Indiana University and Gustav Meier and Markand Thakar at the Peabody Conservatory. He also holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Rice University. His violin teachers were Sergiu Luca, Kenneth Goldsmith, Marina Yashvili, and Tadeusz Wronski. He was a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival in 2002 and has conducted in Master Classes for such distinguished conductors as Yuri Temirkanov and David Zinman.

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WSO interview with Tomasz Golka
More information about Thomas Golka can be found on his web site.