Koziak, Bartosz

He studied the cello with Kazimierz Michalik and Andrzej Bauer at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music and with Philippe Muller at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. 

Winner of the 3rd Witold Lutosławski International Cello Competition in Warsaw (2001), he has also won 2nd Prizes in the Isang Yun and Mykola Lysenko competitions, prizes at the Prague Spring Competition, 1st Prize in the 11th International Contemporary Chamber Music Competition in Cracow, and prizes in the Pyotr Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the ARD Competition in Munich. In 2003, he was honoured with a special prize from the Polish Cultural Foundation awarded by Ewa Podleś. 

He has performed in renowned venues including the Konzerthaus in Berlin, Rudolfinum in Prague, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Teatro Politeama in Palermo, Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio of the Polish Radio and Warsaw Philharmonic. He has worked as a soloist with orchestras such as the Warsaw Philharmonic, Polish National Radio Symphony, Sinfonia Varsovia, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, radio orchestras in Warsaw and Budapest, National Orchestra of Ukraine, Symphony Orchestra of Armenia, and Concerto Budapest, under conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Jan Krenz, Antoni Wit, Gabriel Chmura, Jacek Kaspszyk, Massimiliano Caldi, Volodymyr Sirenko, Ola Rudner, Sergey Smbatyan, and András Keller. As a chamber musician, he has worked with Kaja Danczowska, Elżbieta Stefańska and Anna Maria Staśkiewicz, as well as pianists Justyna Danczowska, Marcin Koziak, Radosław Sobczak, and Agnieszka Kozło. He is a member of the Cellonet group. 

He has been invited to major festivals including Warsaw Autumn, Young Euro Classic in Berlin, Beethoven Easter Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg–Vorpommern, Musica Polonica Nova, Łańcut Music Festival, Chopin and His Europe, Yerevan Perspectives, and East Meets West in South Korea. 

For several years, he has been a regular participant in the concert projects of Krzysztof Penderecki. He took part in the first recording of the Concerto Grosso under the composer’s baton. His discography also includes Grażyna Bacewicz’s Cello Concerto no. 2, which earned a distinction from Pizzicato magazine, and works for cello and piano by Schubert and Schumann’s Märchenbilder (with Justyna Danczowska). 

July 2017 saw the release of a new disc recorded with Anna Maria Staśkiewicz: Duos for Violin & Cello, featuring works by Ravel, Kodály, and Martinů.

Courtesy of Kaja Danczowska, he plays on a nineteenth-century copy of a Guadagnini violin, formerly owned by outstanding Polish cellist Dezyderiusz Danczowski.