Zespół Śpiewaków Miasta Katowice CAMERATA SILESIA

One of Poland’s leading chamber vocal groups, established in 1990 by conductor Anna Szostak, who has led the ensemble ever since. The Camerata has won recognition above all for its performances of contemporary music. 

However, they also feel perfectly at home in early music. Over the nearly 30 years of its career, Camerata Silesia has gained international fame, performing in Europe’s and Asia’s most prestigious concert halls, such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Parco della Musica in Rome, Palais de Beaux-Arts and Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and Lanfang Theatre in Beijing, as well as at international festivals such as Warsaw Autumn, Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, Chopin and His Europe, and Wratislavia Cantans. They perform not only a cappella chamber works, but also large-scale vocal–instrumental repertoire in extended line-ups. Camerata Silesia’s artistic mastery is highly regarded by Krzysztof Penderecki, whose St Luke’s Passion, A Polish Requiem and Seven Gates of Jerusalem (Symphony no. 7) have frequently been performed by Camerata Silesia under the baton of the conductor himself in cities such as Munster, Cracow, and Hamburg. The Camerata has also performed Penderecki’s Canticum Canticorum during the Warsaw Autumn Festival. In 2012, Camerata Silesia was invited to take part in performances and DVD recordings of the stage version of Penderecki’s Passion directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna.

Camerata Silesia closely collaborates with composers on world premies of most recent works, many of which have been composed specially for this ensemble. Camerata Silesia’s internationally critically acclaimed discography includes several dozen titles, nominated more than a dozen times for the Fryderyk Award. 

The ensemble’s recent highlights include joint concerts with the London Baroque Orchestra, the premiere of Marcel Pérès’s Missa Ex tempore, the London performance of Krzysztof Penderecki’s St Luke’s Passion with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, as well as opera performances with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice) and Hofkapelle München (Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas).

Since 2014 roku Camerata Silesia has held its own original concert series at Katowice’s Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, featuring varied programmes that combine classical repertoire with elements of jazz and popular music.