Tadeusz Strugała

A distinguished Polish conductor. He has headed the Wrocław Philharmonic, the National Radio Symphony Orchestra (WOSPR) in Katowice, and the Presidential Symphony Orchestra in Ankara. He was the deputy Artistic Director and permanent conductor at the Warsaw Philharmonic, and at the same time the conductor of the Cracow Philharmonic and of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw.

He performed all over Europe, Australia, the USA and Asia, conducting leading orchestras from Poland and other countries. The over 120 orchestras from all over the world with whom Strugała has worked include the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Staatskapelle Berlin, RIAS Berlin, the Radio-Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, numerous philharmonic and radio orchestras in Prague, Helsinki, Stockholm, Budapest, Bukarest, Leipzig, St. Petersburg, Sofia, Seoul, Israel Sinfonietta, Norfolk Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon, City of London Sinfonia and London Mozart Players. Tadeusz Strugała has conducted numerous first-performances of Polish music and he has recorded performances for the radio and phonographic companies.

For many years he was in charge of two renowned festivals: the Chopin International Festival in Duszniki-Zdrój and the Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Wrocław. Under his artistic and organisational guidance both became recognised as major European music events.

He appeared as a conductor in the final scenes of The Pianist – a film by Roman Polański.

In the Opera in Wrocław, Tadeusz Strugała supervised the production of Carl Maria Weber’s Der Freischuetz; in 2002 his production of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio opened the Hoffman Opera Festival in Poznań. His cooperation with Boris Ejfman resulted in the premiere of a ballet production, Tchaikovsky, with Eifman's choreography which took place in June 2003 at the National Opera in Warsaw. In 2004, Strugała assumed the artistic supervision of Boris Ejfman's ballet group's guest performances in Austria.

Strugała is also involved in education as a professor of the Academy of Music in Kraków. He is also a jury member of international conducting contests. In 2005 he was a jury member of the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Texas (the USA) and will join the jury again in 2009.