Łykowski, Piotr

was a chorister of Stefan Stuligrosz’s Poznań Nightingales in 1970–88. In 1989 he graduated with distinction from Eugeniusz Sąsiadek’s vocal class at the Music Academy in Wrocław.

He has given about a thousand solo performances in almost all European countries, including at international music festivals. His voice type (countertenor) predestines him for the baroque repertoire. He has more than 100 large-scale vocal–instrumental works in his repertoire. He has cooperated with many early music soloists and ensembles, chamber musicians, and philharmonics. He is also highly regarded as an opera singer, having sung in the Polish premieres of Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, L’incoronazione di Poppea, the stage premieres of Krzysztof Penderecki’s Paradise Lost, Zygmunt Krauze’s Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy, Philipp Glass’s Akhnaten, and Igor Stravinsky’s The Flood, as well as the musical Sweeney Todd.

He has recorded extensively for the radio, television and record companies, notably Handel’s Messiah, Peri’s Euridice, and Bononcini’s Stabat Mater. He was the first performer of Zbigniew Preisner’s music for the films De Aegypto and Requiem For My Friend. Piotr Łykowski is also a solo singing teacher at the Music Academy and the State Secondary Music School in Wrocław. For many years he has taught vocal interpretation and was invited to serve on the juries of national and international vocal competitions. For more than a decade he has been the director of the Oratorio and Cantata Music Interpretation Courses in Wrocław. He is also a cofounder and artistic director of the Andrzej Hiolski International Vocal Competition in Kudowa-Zdrój. He was winner of the 1st prize and three special awards (including the virtuosity prize) in the 3rd Ada Sari International Vocal Art Competition in Nowy Sącz (1988).

In 2004 the President of the Republic of Poland made Piotr Łykowski a professor of vocal arts. Since 2000 Łykowski has held major posts at the Vocal Department of the Music Academy in Wrocław; since 2012, he has headed the Chair of Vocal Studies. He has been re-elected as Dean of the Vocal Department for the next term (2016–20). Since September 2013 he has been the President of the Polish Voice Teachers Association.