The Camerata Silesia Katowice City Singers’ Ensemble is a leading Polish chamber vocal ensemble, founded in 1990 by the conductor Anna Szostak, who remains their leader. While predominantly recognised for their perfect performances of contemporary music, they are also extraordinarily well versed in interpreting early music.
Over a career spanning more than 30 years, the Camerata Silesia have won international renown, performing at the most prestigious concert halls of Europe and Asia, including the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Parco della Musica in Rome, the Palais de Beaux-Arts and Le Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Gran Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Lanfang Theatre in Beijing, and the World Trade Center in Taipei.
The ensemble regularly participates in the most important international festivals in Poland, being a guest of Warsaw Autumn, Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, Chopin and his Europe, Misteria Paschalia, and Wratislavia Cantans, amongst others. The choir has also been invited to important festivals abroad, such as Sommerfestspiele in Bregenz, ISCM World Music Days in Vienna, Musikfestival Landschaft Westfalen in Münster, Sounds New Contemporary Music Festival in Canterbury, and Velvet Curtain 2 International Contemporary Music Festival in Lviv.
The Camerata Silesia have premiered over 300 new pieces, frequently composed with the Ensemble and Anna Szostak in mind and dedicated to them. The level of the choir’s work was particularly valued by Krzysztof Penderecki – the Camerata Silesia participated in multiple performances of his Luke’s Passion, A Polish Requiem, and Seven Gates of Jerusalem conducted by the composer himself, also performing the Canticum Canticorum at the Warsaw Autumn festival. In 2012, the ensemble, in its extended membership, was invited to participate in the shows and DVD recordings of the stage version of Penderecki’s St Luke Passion directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna. In 2017, the choir performed the same work in London, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.
The international critical acclaim the Camerata Silesia have won with their concerts extends to their recordings as well. The ensemble has already appeared in several dozen albums. Four of their own ones, conducted by Anna Szostak, won the „Fryderyk” Music Award – in 1997, 2020, 2021, and 2022, while multiple others have been nominated. Other projects on which the Camerata collaborated with other artists have been awarded the „Fryderyk” as well: a 1997 monographic album with pieces by Paweł Szymański, and the „100 na 100” box set documenting 100 years of Polish music, the latter winning as many as two statuettes in 2020.
The patronage of the City of Katowice, granted in 2004, as well as permanent collaboration with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, whose seat has become the Camerata Silesia’s performance venue, are beneficial for the dynamic development of the ensemble, enabling it to work with the finest conductors, soloists, instrumentalists, and orchestras in the world. These are, to name but a few, the Wiener Symphoniker, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hofkapelle München, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the London Baroque, the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, the Aukso – Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy, as well as the Sinfonia Varsovia.
