bass-baritone. Between 1984 and 1996 he sang in the Poznań Nightingales Boys’ and Men’s Choir of the Poznań Philharmonic. He graduated with honours from the Warsaw Academy of Music in the class of Jerzy Artysz. He has won many awards at vocal competitions in Barcelona, Vercelli and Lisboa, and was twice nominated for the prestigious Passport Award of “Polityka” weekly.
He has appeared in many leading concert halls in Germany, Spain, Italy, Holland, Romania, Japan, Lebanon, Ukraine, Russia, France, Belgium, Monaco, Switzerland and Israel. He is a soloist of the Warsaw Chamber Opera (his roles include Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Almaviva in Mozart Le nozze di Figaro, Monteclair’s Jephte, and many others). He cooperates regularly with the Grand Theatre – National Opera in Warsaw (Don Profondo in Rossini’s Il viaggio a Reims, Abbot in Britten’s Curlew River, etc.). He has sung with over 70 orchestras and 110 choirs from around the world, performing over 100 oratorio parts and 15 operatic roles, including Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 and Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Verdi’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Dvořák’s Requiem and Brahms German Requiem.
He has performed with renowned conductors such as Tomasz Bugaj, Agnieszka Duczmal, Edward Higginbottom, Jacek Kaspszyk, Jerzy Katlewicz, Igor Latsanich, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Michel Plasson, Pascal Rophé, Antoni Ros-Marbà, Antoni Wit, and Alberto Zedda. He has also partnered leading early music ensembles including Neue Düsseldorfer Hofmusik and Concerto Polacco, and orchestras such as Hamburg Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, Real Filharmonía de Galicia, Lviv Opera, and Sinfonia Varsovia. He has premiered works by Polish composers including Joanna Bruzdowicz, Wojciech Kilar, Krzysztof Knittel, Andrzej Kurylewicz, Paweł Łukaszewski, and Romuald Twardowski. He has performed at major festivals such as Wratislavia Cantans, Warsaw Autumn, Al-Bustan Festival in Beirut, Sacrum Profanum in Cracow, and the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival.
He is a renowned Lieder recitalist, having appeared notably at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Polish Radio Concert Studio in Warsaw, Royal Castle in Warsaw, Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz, Palau de la Música in Valencia, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Kyoto Concert Hall, Muzeul National George Enescu in Bucharest, Tonhalle in Zurich. He sang with Teresa Żylis-Gara in Monte Carlo before Prince Albert, in Fauré’s Requiem on the funeral of Pope John Paul II, and in Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater at Notre-Dame in Paris at the opening of the Polish Year in France. In 2010 he sang the Mass for the funeral of President Lech Kaczyński in Cracow.
He has made numerous recordings including over 20 CDs, winning Fryderyk and Golden Orpheus awards. Published by Naxos, his recording of Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater received a Grammy nomination in 2009. Jaroslaw Bręk teaches singing at the Music Academy in Poznań where he obtained a PhD in 2010.
