Bywalec, Szymon
graduated with distinction in symphony and opera conducting from the class of Jan Wincenty Hawel at the Music Academy in Katowice, where he now teaches at the Department of Composition, Interpretation, Education and Jazz. Between 2006 and 2013, he was artistic director of the Karol Szymanowski Academic Symphony Orchestra in Katowice. He has worked with renowned conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Gabriel Chmura, Takuo Yuasa, Arturo Tamayo, Jacek Kaspszyk, and Paul McCreesh. He is also a graduate of the Music Academy in Cracow, where he studied the oboe with Jerzy Kotyczka.
On a scholarship to Siena’s Accademia Musicale Chigiana, he has perfected his métier in the class of Gianluigi Gelmetti (2001) and Lothar Zagrosek (2002, diploma with honours). He has also participated in conducting masterclasses run notably by Gabriel Chmura, Kurt Masur, Zoltán Peskó, and Pierre Boulez.
He won the 1st Prize at the National Review of Young Conductors in Białystok (1998) and two special prizes at the Grzegorz Fitelberg International Conducting Competition in Katowice (1999), and has held several scholarships from the Polish Ministry of Culture and the Mayor of Katowice.
He is the permanent conductor of the OMN New Music Orchestra, which he has directed at various modern music festivals including Warsaw Autumn, Wrocław’s Musica Polonica Nova and Musica Electronica Nova, Poznań Music Spring, Bratislava’s Melos–Ethos, Lviv’s Velvet Curtain 2, Paweł Szymański Festival in Warsaw, Beijing Modern, and the Hindsgavl Festival in Denmark. At 2005 Warsaw Autumn, he worked with IRCAM and soloists of the Ensemble Court circuit for a performance of Pierre Boulez’s Répons.
He has given over 100 Polish and world premieres. With the OMN, he has made numerous recordings for Polish Radio, winning a Fryderyk nomination in 2003. For his monographic record with the works of Weronika Ratusińska with the OMN on Dux Records, he won the Pizzicato Supersonic Award (2009). The recording of Paweł Szymański’s Three Trakl Songs received a recommendation at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, while Magdalena Długosz’s Gemisatos (with Sinfonia Varsovia) and Ewa Trębacz’s things lost things invisible (conducted at 2007 Warsaw Autumn in partnership with Arturo Tamayo) were recommended in 2009.
Since 2011 Szymon Bywalec has sat on the programme committee of Warsaw Autumn Festival, and was artistic director of the Musica Polonica Nova festival in 2013–16. He has conducted many philharmonic, radio, and chamber orchestras in Poland and other countries.
He has directed notably the Romanian Radio National Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic, Hungarian Symphony in Miskolc, Camerata Strumentale Città di Prato, Orchestra Filarmonica Europea, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, Melos Ethos Ensemble, Slovak Sinfonietta in Žilina, Polish National Radio Symphony, Sinfonia Varsovia, Polish Radio Orchestra, and other philharmonic and symphony orchestras in Poland.