Marek Janowski, present at musical scene since over 30 years is renowned as distinguished orchestra director, creative conductor and artistic and musical director of Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, who revolutionized musical life in Monaco.
Marek Janowski was appointed the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra´s Artistic and Music Director after 14 immensely successful years at the head of the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, during which time his influence as a meticulous rehearser, commanding performer and imaginative programmer brought the orchestra unprecedented international acclaim as an ensemble of international quality and impressive versatility. His tenure followed an already distinguished career in the opera house and the concert hall that had first made its mark when he was appointed a conductor of the Hamburg Opera in 1969.
Thirty years earlier he had been born in Warsaw, of Polish and German parents who took him to live with them in Germany from an early age. There he began his musical studies and in due course took conducting lessons from Wolfgang Sawallisch.
After four years at Hamburg, in 1973 Marek Janowski was appointed Music Director of the Freiburg Opera and then of the Dortmund Opera, where his reputation grew so high that he was invited to record the entire Ring Cycle of Wagner with an international cast and the Dresden Staatskapelle. His direction was acclaimed, as it was in many other opera recordings such as Weber´s Euryanthe, Strauss´s Die Schweigsame Frau, Korngold´s Violanta and Penderecki´s The Devils of Loudon.
Appearances in the opera houses of Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Dresden, San Francisco, New York and Chicago reinforced his high eminence in this field. His work in the concert hall was equally applauded as he took on posts as Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Cologne Gurzenich Orchestra and guest conducted orchestras that have included the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Dresden Staatskapelle, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia, Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic. Especially highly acclaimed orchestral recordings have been of symphonies by Bruckner, the four symphonies of Roussel and the Turangalila-Symphony by Messiaen, all with the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.
Since 2000 he has been the Artistic and Music Director of the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra and since 2001 he has been the Music Director of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. Maestro Janowski´s arrival in Monte-Carlo has been a watershed both for the Orchestra and music lovers. Famed as a creative orchestra builder and an eclectic performer, he has dramatically enhanced its artistic status and dynamically extended its concert programming. He initiated an expansion from 85 to 100 players, auditioning a large number of outstanding young players from international parts and carefully and painstakingly integrating them and the existing players into a new orchestra of high precision, refinement and brilliance.
He introduced a whole new range of concert series that includes Sunday morning coffee concerts specializing in the music of Haydn and his time, lunch-time chamber concerts, concerts for young people and contemporary music events. With these developments, music in Monaco has been revolutionized to include a range of large and small scale repertoire never before heard in the Principality, which now enjoys a new international sophistication in its concert life.
